#Is not filled with 3 dozen serial killers waiting for me to clock out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

Text

scopaesthesia 👁️ chapter 1

Warnings: nonconsensual sex, mentions of death, murder, violence, stalking, paranoia and other warnings to be added

This is dark!Bucky Barnes with a likelihood off dark!Steve Rogers as well and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Someone’s watching you.

Note: This one’s gonna be a bit creepy as it features a serial killer and stalking and all sorts of creepery. It’ll be about two or three parts!

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

The bleak headline glared across your screen as bleaker weather fogged the glass of your window.

'Grisly murder suspected to be connected to previous incident'.

You shivered as the steam rose from your mug and the smell of roasted bean filled your nose. The city was on edge. Death was not unfamiliar but killings so methodical were. There was a pattern that no one could deny, even if the media left out certain bloody details.

You tapped the porcelain and turned to look at the misty cityscape beyond your building. The city had a pulse; the car horns, the puffing manholes, the endless parade of footsteps on the pavement. The immortal metropolitan was unaffected by its mortal occupants.

You closed the window on your phone as you turned back. You couldn’t finish the article. To think that any human could do that to another; that any should suffer at the hands of another… One could never truly be immune to the helpless despair. It was a chance that set one in the hands of a monster, as much chance kept one from the same fate.

You finished your coffee and ate a bagel before you readied for another day lost in the sea of people below. Another day at your desk answering phones and staring at a screen between greeting many who acknowledge your existence with impatient disdain.

The same daily ritual in the mirror; another department store blouse, another grey skirt, another pair of low pumps. You grabbed your pea coat and your leather tote and hurried out to catch your train. Twenty minutes with your favourite podcast before you pulled the cord and ran off into the concrete jungle.

Another coffee at your desk; the watery fare from the staff room machine. You sat and began your work. Fake smiles and a sickly sweet voice for every caller and visitor to the small office. Log this, change this, email that. The mindless toil bearable only for the promise of your box-like apartment and its tiny comforts.

You never stayed in the office for lunch. Not anymore. It made the days suffocating, even on rainy or snowy days. You went to the park to eat, although sometimes you weren’t hungry. You watched the ducks or the shedding trees or the teens playing hooky and puffing none so subtly near the bushes.

When you returned, you felt at least that your break hadn’t been wasted even if it had only been more sitting. Ring, ring, click, click, tap, tap, cough, cough. The hours wore on in monotony. Nothing unexpected, nothing more than tedium. The most exciting part was when the clock bid you to leave.

You were almost so lost in the endless banality that you didn’t notice the man behind you until you boarded the train. Until you sat and took out your phone. You pretended to be enraptured by the screen as you scrolled through unread emails and peeked up at him. He stood by the door. His eyes avoided yours.

When you stood at your stop, he did not move. Not until the door began to close and you were near the turnstiles. His shadow was a fleck at the edge of your vision. He was definitely following you. You thought of the article, and its precursor the week before; the suggestion that the murderer had already amassed half a dozen victims. You shrugged away the paranoia and climbed the old filthy steps to ground level.

As you turned the corner onto your street you stopped and waited. The man nearly passed you as he came around the bend and you cleared your throat. You gripped your keys in your fist, ready to stab the man with the largest one.

“You following me?” You asked as pedestrians bumped into him and passed by.

He moved out of their path and stood beside you against the wall. He smiled to himself and scoffed. His blue eyes ran you up and down and you felt as if you’d seen him before. As if you knew him from somewhere. You just couldn’t place it.

“I am.” He confessed. “You’re very… observant.”

“You’re not very subtle,” you countered.

He lifted his head and reached inside his jacket. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. Capitals ran across the top; S.H.I.E.L.D. and below a name and picture; James Buchanan Barnes. You sighed and crossed your arms. Your spine went rigid. What on earth could he want from you?

“So…” You pushed yourself away from the brick wall, “How exactly can I help a government operative?”

He glanced around and tucked away his wallet. “Is there anywhere private we can talk? You live around here?”

“Private? At least tell me what’s going on?” You huffed.

“For both our safety, you need to wait for that answer,” he hook his thumb in his jean pocket. “But if you don’t give a shit, I can leave you be and see what happens.”

You frowned. You were confused and slightly afraid. You couldn’t guess at what could have brought him to you. A man you’d only ever seen on a screen.

“Fine,” you adjusted your bag on your shoulder, “Across the street.”

He followed you to the curb as the blood swelled in your ears. Your cheeks were hot and a chill gripped your neck. You crossed between the flooded New York traffic, aware of his shadow at your shoulder. His boots barely made a noise on the pavement as your short heels clicked noisily.

You led him into your lobby and fumbled with your keys. You shoved them into the slot and the door clicked open. He grabbed it before you could and waved you inside. You remembered him now. You rarely saw him without another. In your mind, the man didn’t exist exclusive to his old pal, Steve Rogers.

You stopped just inside the door and kept yourself from hitting the elevator button.

“Mr., er, Agent Barnes--” You began.

“Bucky is fine.” He corrected

“How do you even know who I am?” You asked suddenly. “I’m… nobody.”

“As I said, I’d prefer somewhere private,” he urged, “It’s protocol for this type of circumstance.”

“And which type is that?” You challenged as he stepped around you and hit the button.

“The type where you should stop worrying so much about me and more about yourself,” he said as the doors slid open, “Come on.” He stepped inside and turned, “What floor.”

“Third.” You answered as you entered the small box, “I’m in danger?”

He was quiet and his left hand balled into a fist then released as he stared at the numbers. You could hear the strain in the leather glove.

When the doors opened again, he let you off first and kept a step behind you as you led him down the hall to your door. You paused and looked back at him as you picked out the right key. He was impossible to figure out; stone-faced and staunch. You opened your door and welcomed him in with a flutter of fingers.

He shut the door and locked it behind him. You dropped your bag on the shoe rack and kicked your shoes beneath it. Your arches were sore as you backed up and watched him. He looked at his boots and back at you. You shrugged off your jacket and he sighed before he did the same. He reluctantly knelt to unknot the laces of his boots.

“Should I… get you something? Coffee?”

“This isn’t exactly social,” he uttered, “Can we sit? There’s a lot to… explain.”

“Sure,” you led him to the couch and sat. He lowered himself on the other cushion, on the edge as he kept an eye on you.

“Okay, so you’re first question, how do I know who you are?”

He leaned against the arm and dug out his phone. He unlocked it and flicked through its content. He turned it towards you and you frowned at the picture of yourself. You behind your desk, the phone to your ear, as you scribbled on your notepad. He dragged it over and another appeared; you at the grocery store. A third, you at the front door of your building.

“What--”

“These were found at a crime scene.” He interjected. He flipped his phone and searched through the images, “Do you know this woman?”

He showed you the screen again and you shook your head. Whoever she was, she was a stranger to you, although you couldn’t say she didn’t look familiar.

“Her?” He brought up another photo and got the same answer. Three more times as the hair stood on your arms. You didn’t know any of them but they all looked alike. They all looked like you.

“What’s going on?” You asked in a brittle voice.

“You read the news?”

“Sometimes.”

“You’ve heard about the murders? Of the women?”

You nodded and gulped. Your eyes rounded as you trembled in disbelief and fear. “Why are you here though? Why not the cops?”

“They are doing their part and we’re doing ours. You see, we found more than just the photos. Due to security protocols and to protect both of all, I can’t divulge all the evidence I can only say that it brings it under S.H.I.E.L.D. jurisdiction.”

His thumb slid across the screen and revealed another picture. One of the women with a welt across her neck and sloppily down make-up on her face. You blanched and he looked down. He cleared his throat and blackened the screen.

“Sorry,” he put his phone back in his pocket. “You shouldn’t… Look, I know it’s a lot to digest but it’s better you know.”

“But why are you here? I don’t understand… why did he have my picture?”

“From what we can tell, who it is has been following you. These killings seem to be steps on his path to you. He didn’t have anything about the other women. No photos, no writings--”

“Writings?” You gasped.

“Take a breath. Be calm.” He said. “I’m here now. To protect you.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Well, I guess that’s the real bad news.” He said. “I’m gonna be your shadow. Now, since we nearly got this guy and have all his stuff, we know he’s scrambling right now. He’s hiding, waiting to come back to you but we know he’s not dumb enough to do it yet. Which is why I am here at this very moment. When he does return, when he’s watching you, I’ll be watching him.”

“You can’t-- You can’t move me?”

“Scaring him away won’t do anything. You’re safer if we can catch this guy. We can’t let him know that anything’s changed.” Bucky said.

“So… I’m bait?”

“You’re safe.” He insisted. “You’ll have my number, you can call me anytime. And I won’t be far. Not really. And I don’t work alone. You’ll be protected.”

“Why are you telling me then if you’re just going to let him keep following me?”

“Well, we waited until it was crucial to let you know,” he said, “And given his desperate circumstance, we think you should now.”

“Do you know how long--”

“Months, years, we’re still combing through the evidence. We only know he won’t stop.” He shifted on the couch. “And I’m telling you because there’s a few things I need from you.”

“Like what?” You scoffed.

“A key to this place. Just in case. And we’ll need to keep a close eye on you. That means, you’ll have to wear a bug and we’ll be tracking your location.”

“What?” You shook your head. “That’s… a lot.”

“We need to know if anything happens immediately and we need to be able to get to you. If you do this, it will help us get him sooner and hopefully, that means that you won’t have to do it for long.”

“I’ll have to have the key made,” you said quietly.

“I can take care of that,” he stood and you watched him cross the room.

He went to the coat rack and reached into your jacket pocket. He took your keys and set his phone on the small round table just beside the shoes. He placed one key on his screen and it made a chirping noise, he turned it over before doing the second key. He dropped them back into your pocket and grabbed his phone.

“This,” he stirred around in his own jacket, “Has a mic and tracker.” He held up the golden chain with the small pink rose ornament. “Wear this and that’s it. That’s all we need. If you take it off, hang it somewhere it won’t be obstructed.”

“Okay,” you got up slowly and took the necklace from him, “Um, thank you, I guess.”

“Look, I know it’s all a bit fucked up but it’s to keep you safe.” He said. “And you are safe, okay? I’ve dealt with much worse than this creep.”

👁️

There was rarely a morning when you were eager to be awake but that morning came crashing down on you with a sense of doom. You rolled over and opened your eyes. The golden necklace hung from your bedside lamp, dangling, calling to you, reminding you of the man who had stalked you back to your apartment. And the other man who loomed in the shadows. A stranger who apparently knew you well.

You sat up and clipped the necklace around your neck so you wouldn’t forget. Was it Bucky listening to you? Was he even listening so early? You stood and ambled across the room with a yawn. Today, the rain left a sheet of frost on the window. Was it winter so soon?

You drank your coffee without tasting it and chewed on a piece of buttered toast. Your phone buzzed. Private number was all it said but you knew who it was.

‘What time do you leave?’ Bucky asked. You typed in the number and nothing more. He already knew which train you took.

You dressed as you did every day. You pulled the necklace over the collar of your shirt and sighed. You felt awkward as if you were living in a simulation; a facsimile of your meek existence.

Ready to face the day and the unknown, you set out as you flicked away another message; ‘You have a break? What time?’ You’d answer him after you got to work. You couldn’t be staring at your phone knowing that someone was undoubtedly watching you.

You stood on the train, too antsy to sit. You waited by the door, ready to bolt off at the slightest sign of trouble. You played with the rose charm without thinking. Your phone buzzed and you quickly drew your fingers away.

Another message from your private caller. 'There's disturbance on the mic. Stop touching.' You almost laughed. It was comical. You'd be an awful spy but you weren't anything close. You were prey.

What would have happened if those pictures had not been discovered? You hated to even think of it. So you pushed away the thought and got off the train.

The streets felt darker even as the grey sky paled. Pedestrians were villains, each one sinister and plotting. When you got to work, you were out of breath as you had nearly broken into a sprint.

You sat and clocked in. You took out your phone and responded to the texts but got nothing back. You hung your jacket on the rack in the corner and went about your usual routine but nothing felt usual. The incessant ringing of the phone and the chatter of the office added to the chaos of your mind. You tried to distract yourself with your work but found yourself fidgety and anxious. Every unfamiliar face that walked through the doors was a potential suspect.

When you took your lunch, you stayed in the office. The break room was empty as you sat and your phone vibed in your blazer pocket. You answered the private number and unwrapped your granola bar.

“You on lunch?” Bucky asked, you confirmed with a mumble. “Are you okay?”

“Am I? What’s going on? Anything?” You stilled the crinkling of the wrapper, suddenly sick to your stomach.

“It’s not going to be that easy or fast. Right now, he’s waiting for us to look away but he could also be in a panic which means he could do something impulsive.” Bucky explained.

“Impulsive? What does that mean?”

“Look, you don’t need to be afraid. I got this. This is nothing compared to what I usually--”

“Nothing?! Well maybe you’re used to this but I’m just a secretary, okay? I don’t know what I’m doing or what to do!” Your voice was shrill as you crushed the granola bar in your hand.

“Take a breath,” he said firmly. “Calm down and proceed as usual. I’m here. I’m watching.”

You sniffed and struggled not to hyperventilate. When you finally got your breathing under control you nodded into the phone and murmured a pathetic ‘okay’.

“Hey, you don’t need to be afraid, okay? Not with me around. So far you’ve been lucky. We figured it out before he got to you and now we’re way ahead of him and he doesn’t even know it.” Bucky coaxed.

“Yeah, I guess,” you deflated and stood from the table; restless.

You went to the kettle and flicked it on. Shaena was always offering you peppermint tea; you’d take her up on that. Maybe it would help calm you down.

“How about tonight I’ll come buy with a pizza and we can go over protocol?” He offered. “And it’ll be good for you not to be alone.”

“Pizza?” You frowned.

“Well, you know, I’m sitting on surveillance all day, I don’t exactly get to relax,” he explained. “...you can say no but it’d be my treat.”

“I’m sorry I’m panicking. I’m just… scared. I didn’t sleep-- I--” You choked on your voice. “You don’t mind?”

“Do you?” He returned.

You sighed and opened the cupboard to grab a mug. You tapped your fingers on the countertop.

“This must be really boring for you,” you said. “You don’t have to--”

“If I’m being honest with you, it’s supposed to be freezing tonight and I don’t exactly get to hang around in a five star suite. You’d be doing me a favour and have the extra security of some goon with a metal arm.” He chuckled.

“Alright,” you threw your hand up. “But I don’t like pepperoni.”

“Damn…” he uttered, “Well, I guess we all have to make sacrifices.”

👁️

You were slightly less frantic when you left work. Bucky texted you to assure you he was there… somewhere. You took your usual route. He explained it was best not to change your routine. You didn’t want to tip off the creep.

The train ride was slow and jittery. The frigid air of the looming New York winter crept in between the door and you shivered as you got off at your stop. Your heels clicked around you as you gripped your bag and the phone in your pocket. You struggled not to look around and try to search out your stalker.

You unlocked your door and dropped your bag beside the shoe rack. You kicked off your heels and rubbed your legs together to warm up. You hung your jacket and took your phone out as you began to pace your apartment.

How close was Bucky? How close was the killer?

You kept checking your messages and then slammed your phone on the coffee table. Stop! You were driving yourself crazy. You made yourself sit and flipped on the television. You put on an old sitcom and tried to settle in. You squirmed on the couch and found it difficult to follow the episode.

Your phone lit up suddenly and made you flinch. The sky was already dark through the window as your ringer blared over the television. You reached for your cell; Private Number. You answered clumsily and pressed it to your ear.

“Hello?” You rasped.

Silence. You blinked and repeated your greeting. Still, the line was quiet. You shook your head and hung up. Before you could toss your phone, it shook again and cried out a melody. You answered again.

This time heavy breathing greeted you. It got louder as you listened and a trickle of ice rolled over your spine. You ended the call and stared at your phone. A third call. You slowly hit the green icon and then turned the phone to speaker.

“Don’t you ever hang up on me.” A man snarled in a crackly voice, “Ever.”

“Who… who is this?”

“Shhh, baby girl, I won’t hurt you. I just want to make sure you’re safe.” He said, “That’s all I want.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” You gulped.

Another silence. This one long and exaggerated, pierced only by a metallic whisper. “...You,” he purred darkly, “I want you, baby girl. I want your blood, I want your screams.” You shook as you dropped the phone, his voice muffled but his words clear, “I want that precious little cunt.”

You sobbed and bent to grab the phone again. Your thumb hovered over the red button.

“Baby girl, I told you about hanging up on me. I hope that’s not what you’re thinking of now.”

You said nothing as your eyes burned with frightened tears and you looked down at your necklace. Could Bucky hear? Where was he?

“Soon, I promise, we can be together,” the stranger cooed, “You and me. All alone.” He took a deep breath, “All mine.”

“Please, leave me--”

The line clicked and went dead. You stared at your phone and jumped at the sudden knock on the door. Your fingers curled around your cell and you stood. You crossed to the door. You peeked through the peephole. Bucky stood with a pizza box. You opened the door sharply.

“Where were you?” You snapped.

“What?”

“He just called!” You nearly shouted.

“Keep it down,” he warned as he stepped inside and you retreated. He closed the door and locked it. “He called?”

He went to the kitchen and set the pizza down. “Just now?”

“I thought you were listening? I had him on speaker.”

“I… I’ll have to play it back. I was on my way, I didn’t--”

“You-- you-- The things he said,” you croaked, “You can’t imagine and, and… how did he get my number? You said he would be hiding!”

“Well, these things aren’t exactly cookie cutter--”

“What if he’s watching me right now? Looking in through my window and--” Your voice was shrill as you rung your hands and brushed by Bucky. He followed you to the window as you twisted the blinds shut. “He’s going to kill me like he did all those girls. He’s going to--”

“Come on,” Bucky grabbed your arm and pulled you away from the window, “Just breathe.” He turned you to him and placed his hands on your arms. He rubbed them through your blouse. “In, out…” He began to guide you, “On my count; one, in, two, out…”

Your eyes rounded and you struggled to calm yourself. You were shaking but managed to measure your breaths in time with his voice.

“That’s it,” his hands framed your face as he leaned in to look you in the face, “I’m here now and if you need me to, I’ll stay all night.”

You nodded dumbly and grabbed his forearms. His metal thumb stroked your cheek and you slowly pulled his hands away.

“Bucky…” You whispered as he slowly dropped his hands. “Thank you.”

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megabadbunny · 5 years

Text

In Lovers’ Meeting (3/?)

The Doctor glared at her. Rose glared back. Jackie fanned herself as she watched them both, unimpressed.

A rewrite; dedicated to the absolutely wonderful @davinasgirlfriend . <3

* * *

- Chapter 3 -

The card-reader denied her ID. Typical; leave it to Oliver to update that sort of thing as soon as humanly possible. It was every bit as impressive as it was infuriating.

Swearing under her breath, Rose shoved the card back in her jacket-pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver instead. It felt more than a little wrong, using one of the Doctor’s most trusted implements to take care of this—especially given that it was a dead Doctor’s instrument, even if he technically had never really died, since that universe had technically never existed, or however that worked—but hopefully the Doctor would understand.

(The real Doctor, that was; she didn’t want to think about how the new Doctor would feel.)

A whir of the sonic and the door slid open, revealing a darkened lab filled with dozens upon dozens of projects in various states of assemblage, deconstruction, and dissection; Rose strode past all of them straight to the back room, where the Dimension Cannon sat, exactly as she’d left it days ago. With one last glance around to make absolutely certain no one was watching (no matter how much it felt like it), Rose flipped a few switches and the Cannon powered on, whining to life in the cold, dark room.

Rose entered the initialization sequence with trembling fingers. This would work. It would. It had to.

The Cannon’s whine gave way to a dull groan, flooding the room with sound until the walls and the floors and the soles of Rose’s boots buzzed and hummed with it. If she’d turned on the overhead lights, Rose knew they would be flickering right about now, drained by the massive amount of power required to operate the Cannon. She flipped on the sonic again, this time to bypass Oliver and Christa’s authorization codes and bring the Cannon to full power. The Cannon’s pilot lights glowed an eerie yellow-green in the semi-darkness, blinking here, flashing there. Rose waited and watched it all with breathless anticipation.

Blinking in greeting, the display invited Rose to step into the transportation chamber and enter coordinates. She complied, clambering into the chamber and typing in coordinates, her jaw set and her gaze grim. But she hesitated, after, her fingers hovering over the return key. The moment suspended in time, growing sluggish with each passing tick of the clock.

He would only be upset for a little bit, the nearly-Doctor. Maybe he wouldn’t even have time to notice she was gone—it wasn’t like Rose would leave him waiting for years on end. Rose would hop back as soon as she could—it would be easy enough, with the TARDIS—and she would give him the chance to come with her and the Doctor, if he wanted. Because as angry as she was, at the Doctor, at him, he still deserved a choice. The same choice she had deserved.

She bit her lip. Maybe she should wait, grab him first. Just in case.

(Maybe she shouldn’t do this at all.)

Deep breaths. Rose steadied herself. Reminded herself of the years of work and research, the months of construction, the weeks full of jumps, the hours of post-jumping sickness early in the trials, the late nights and early mornings and lost weekends that followed after. She remembered all of the terrible things she had seen, the things she had done, the people she couldn’t help, the worlds she couldn’t save—

All that time, she could have slid back into a normal life—could have, maybe even should have—and she chose this instead.

Or tried to choose, she thought with a grimace.

Certainty resurged through her veins and she smacked the return key with a vengeance.

(The Cannon didn’t work. Because of course it didn’t.)

At least the meltdown was polite enough to wait until she was far away from the expensive lab equipment.

(Why don’t you try counting, Rose? she remembered her first UNIT counselor advising her, along with a host of other exercises designed to dispel negative emotions. Try thinking of your happy place. Try punching a pillow or a punching-bag, and imagine your enemy’s face is there. Try finding your inner peace, he’d say, accompanied by a condescending paternal gaze thrown warmly over his oversized, outdated glasses that looked like something a 70’s serial killer might have worn. Needless to say, it didn’t take Rose long to switch counselors; her current therapist, a brisk and no-nonsense former military surgeon, urged her to find ways to investigate and resolve those negative emotions instead. Cognitive restructuring, she would say sharply, in her thick New Zealand accent. Deep relaxation. Support-network engagement. Open communication. Mindfulness, the counselor would urge, and much to Rose’s surprise, when she tried these techniques, they often helped.)

Approximately .002 seconds into her meditative cooldown, Rose punched through the washroom mirror.

(Why had she expected the Cannon to work? He’d told her he was closing up the last gaps between universes. He’d told her. And that was the one sort of thing he wouldn’t lie about.)

Probably she should stop while she was ahead, or at least not as far behind as she could have been, but instead, Rose drew back her fist and punched again. And again. And again. Tears gummed up her eyelashes and pain screamed at her from far away, punctuated by the sharp screech of shattering glass and cracking tile, but she forced her stiffening fingers to hold their shape and punched her fist into the mirror over and over and over, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, smash, until Rose drew her hand back to find a ragged-edged hole in the glass and her hand glistening with blood.

Rose bit back on a strangled cry, breath escaping her lungs in bursts. Pain blossomed through her hand, bleeding to the forefront of her consciousness, and she doubled over with the intensity of it, gasping as her hand swelled and throbbed with hurt. Idiot, idiot, idiot her pulse shrieked, in time with the lights flickering overhead.

Shaking, Rose flipped on the faucet and forced her hand beneath the cold water. Fresh hurt seared through her hand and she shouted in pain, cursing as she gingerly removed debris from her torn knuckles. Two of her fingers were turning purple already, stiff and swollen and tender to move. Sprained, Rose thought, and cursed herself for her stupidity.

Mouth tensing in pain as she gently dabbed her hand dry, Rose took a few extra moments to calm herself, allowing the pain to wash over her, breathing in and out through quivering lungs. In, out. In, out. Her uninjured hand flew up to her chest, pressing against the key that hung from a chain round her neck; hidden beneath her shirts, it laid heavy and solid and cool against her overheated skin, and she traced her thumb along its jagged-toothed edge, willing herself to calm, to let this moment pass.

In, out. In, and out.

She would get through this. She would.

Glancing up at the mirror, at the disjointed fractures of her reflection spiraling downward into the hollow left by her fist, she thought grimly about how she finally looked every bit as horrible as she felt. Great. Just great.

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

“Probably fix your damn fingers,” Rose muttered to her reflection, which didn’t disagree. All right. So that was step one. She could worry about steps two through forever later.

After a brief detour to the lab’s emergency first-aid cabinet, where she gulped down some paracetamol and grabbed a few key supplies, Rose made her way over to her office, a tiny room tucked away in an unobtrusive corner of the laboratory. Plonking down on her desk amidst a scuffle of loose files and stacks of neglected paperwork, she got to work splinting her fingers, wincing as she wound medical tape over gauze and bruises and blood, forcing herself to remember to breathe.

In, out.

One last circuit of the medical tape and Rose tore the stuff free from the roll with her teeth, tucking it securely in place. She closed her eyes, just breathing.

In, out.

Footsteps sounded gently in the near distance—quiet, but not quiet enough to ping the sense that someone was sneaking up on her, probably some labbie come to chase her off, what with her shiny new persona non grata status and all—but Rose paid the noise little mind.

In, out.

(Idiot.)

“Thought I mind find you in here,” said a familiar voice, slicing through her thoughts, and Rose opened her eyes to find Jackie standing in front of her, hands planted on hips, brow wrinkled in worry. “Or I was afraid of it, more like.”

Jackie flipped the lightswitch behind her and Rose blinked sterile white light out of her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be tucking Tony in bed right about now?” Rose asked tiredly, shifting her injured hand out of sight.

“Pete’s got it sorted. Not that it matters, the nursery let him have soda, so he’ll be up all hours of the night anyway,” Jackie sighed, shaking her head. “But I had a funny little feeling I should turn back round and take care of my other child right about now. Call it a mum’s intuition.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Mum. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Right, so that’s why you’re hiding in your office in the dark?”

“Yep,” said Rose flatly.

Jacked tutted under her breath. “It’s not gonna do you any good, you know. You can’t avoid things forever.”

“I just needed a moment to myself, that’s all.”

“But you will give him a chance, though? The new Doctor.”

“Yeah,” replied Rose, her voice clipped. “Sure.”

“Don’t suppose it means anything that he gave up so much to be with you.”

Rose chuckled halfheartedly. “You’re taking his side, now? Maybe things have changed after all.”

“Listen, I may not know what a crisis-thing is, but I do know I’m glad he came here and brought you with him,” Jackie told her. “Cos he could’ve stayed over in the other universe, easy as pie, and you’d’ve stayed, too. But he didn’t. You’ve always been so willing to give up everything for him—your family, your friends, your home, your life—”

“That was my choice, Mum—”

“—so really, it’s only fair he’d do the same, ain’t it? High time he gave up everything for you, for a change.”

“It’s not like that.”

Jackie huffed. “Looks an awful lot like that to me. This Doctor, he said goodbye to that magic ship of his and everything, just for you, to stay here with you. Didn’t he?”

“He didn’t, though. He would never.”

“How do you know? Maybe this new one would.”

Rose grunted noncommittally, scrubbing her noninjured hand over her face. Jackie cocked her head, mouth pursed thin as she took a moment to gauge Rose properly. “What’s wrong, love?” she asked, her tone suddenly soft, maternal. “I mean, what’s really wrong?”

Rose shrugged. It doesn’t matter. Maybe if she thought it hard enough, it would become true. How was that for cognitive restructuring?

“You’re acting all angry at that new Doctor, but it’s not him at all, is it?”

Rose did not reply.

With a sigh, Jackie shucked her jacket, setting it aside. “It’s the other him, yeah?” she asked gently. “The one that sent you away.”

Pressure burned in Rose’s sinuses and she twisted her mouth, willing the tears back.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jackie sighed, drawing Rose into a hug. Her embrace was warm, imbued with that special brand of soft maternal warmth, and Rose had to fight harder not to cry because of it. She hugged her mother limply, and Jackie squeezed tighter in response, like she could smoosh all the bad feelings away.

“It’s his loss,” said Jackie, gently. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Rose didn’t have the energy to argue.

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” Jackie said, squeezing again for good measure. The hug was almost unbearably hot, but Rose couldn’t bring herself to pull away. “I really am. I know how hard you worked to get back. And it weren’t right, the way the other Doctor sent you away like that, without even hardly a word from you. I know it hurts. Believe me—I know. But in a way—well, in a way, wasn’t it sort of a good thing?”

“Downright charitable,” Rose muttered.

“This way, you get the best of both worlds. Him, and everything else. Or a version of him, anyway. And isn’t it nice, that you get to keep your family, now? Isn’t it nice that you’ll get to spend more time with your dad, see your brother grow up, keep all your friends, all that?”

Rose couldn’t muster a reply; hot guilt and cold anger and tired resignation all roiled restlessly in her mind and none of them offered anything useful to say.

“I would have missed you horribly,” said Jackie, her voice unusually small. “Wouldn’t you have missed me at all?”

“Of course I would’ve, Mum.”

“Yeah. So why don’t you talk to me about it all, then? Tell Mum what’s eating you, love.”

With a deep breath, Rose stepped back and opened her mouth to reply—she didn’t really feel like talking about it, didn’t really feel like talking at all, but her therapist’s words echoed in her ears (Support-network engagement, Rose. Open communication, Rose) and she knew, however grudgingly, that she should at least try; she owed her mum that much—but her words were cut off by the sudden shrill squeal of an alarm blaring overhead.

“Warning: Code Blue,” a pleasant female voice announced through the intercom as emergency lights flashed from the ceiling. “Code Blue. Status level Four. Please implement standard quarantine protocol. All personnel must proceed in a swift, calm, and orderly manner to their nearest quarantine station. Warning: Code Blue…”

“What’s that?” asked Jackie.

“Code Blue,” Rose echoed. “Something to do with Medical, I think.”

“Oh! Must be the thing upstairs, then.”

“What thing?”

“When I was on my way in, there were all these people crowded round the cafeteria,” Jackie explained. “I just thought it was alcohol poisoning—dunno if you’ve seen the news at all, but the emergency lines are absolutely swamped with reports of it, absolutely everyone’s pissed, s’like the stars came back and no one can hold their liquor anymore...”

She kept talking, but Rose hadn’t registered any of the words that left her mouth after cafeteria. Fog filled her head, obscuring any thoughts of anything that wasn’t her conversation with the Doctor outside the lift, trying to rid herself of him, telling him to do whatever he liked, with the unspoken addendum that as long as it was nowhere near her, he could go wherever he wanted.

Including the cafeteria—

Rose pushed past Jackie, ignoring how her mum shouted after her in confusion. A low whine droned in her ears as she stalked her way to the lab door, growing louder and louder and louder until it drowned out all other sound.

What if—?

Panic seized her and the lab door was sliding open and god, had it always been so interminably slow? Rose slid through the gap and made her way to the lift, striding, jogging, then sprinting as her heart pounded painfully in her throat. She slammed the lift button several times before remembering that, of course, emergency protocol meant lifts were down. She bolted over to the stairwell instead, throwing open the doors and darting up the stairs two and three at a time, shoving past the few personnel she encountered along the way.

“They said to go calmly,” one agent irritably called after her and on any other day she might agree, maybe stop to apologize or at least throw a Sorry! over her shoulder, but her throat was too thick and her chest was too tight and what had happened upstairs, what had happened in the cafeteria, what if he’d been there when it happened, what if it had happened to him, what if his new human body couldn’t handle whatever it was and now he was—what if—what if what if what if what if—

“Rose!” shouted Jackie, chasing after her. “What’s wrong?”

Do what you like, it’s no difference to me.

Rose barreled straight into an abandoned caretaker’s trolley, knocking supplies to the floor in a flurry of mops and spray-bottles. She left them rolling across the floor and kept running. Seconds later, she’d arrived at the lunchroom, and what she saw stole the last of her breath away. A bunch of hastily-installed plastic quarantine sheeting obscured much of the view inside the cafeteria’s glass doors, but the blobs of telltale bright yellow moving slowly round inside told her enough.

Oh, god. Oh god.

Rose flipped out the sonic and unlocked the doors without a second thought, pulling aside the plastic sheeting to see HAZMAT-suited agents covering every inch of the place. Agents with plastic-bagged oversized cameras photographed the scene while others scraped samples off tables and walls and counters and chairs, entering data into their tablets and laptops. Several operatives trawled the area with black light instruments, meticulously searching for any sign of biological fluids; others stood in groups of two and three, talking in low tones, their voices quiet in that special sort of too-casual way that suggests a conversation one doesn’t want attention drawn toward.

But then Rose’s gaze found the far corner of the room, and her stomach lurched awfully at the sight of it. There, nearly hidden by HAZMAT-suited medical officers in a disjointed row of highlighter-neon-yellow, sat a stretcher, a covered body lying still and unmoving atop it. And a memory swam up in Rose’s mind, of another stretcher and another body, in a cold dark room, with the TARDIS dying nearby…

Her blood turned to ice in her veins. All sound filtered from the room, leaving behind a strange buzzing in her ears instead. Rose’s feet carried her forward on impulse, leading her to the body. It wasn’t until one of the HAZMAT suits stepped in her path, blocking her view, that she realized how far she’d made it into the room, how everyone had stopped to stare at her.

“Excuse me,” Rose said in something of a daze, fishing out her now-defunct UNIT ID. “Agent Tyler, Special Sciences Division. I just have to check…”

“Sorry, Agent Tyler,” said the officer, stepping in her path once again as she tried to duck around him. “It’s essential personnel only. I can’t let you through.”

“It’s all right!” Jackie piped up, following after Rose with a hand pressed to her chest, wheezing as if she were winded from the run. “Jackie Tyler here, Director Tyler’s wife. She’s with me—”

“Just tell me if you’ve got an ID on the body,” Rose pleaded.

“That information is classified.”

“Please,” she choked out.

“Agent Tyler—”

“Look, I know you’ve got your protocols, but I’ve got to make sure, I’ve just got to know if it’s—please, I have to know, it’ll only take me a second—please—”

“For Christ’s sake, what are you doing, just letting them stand there?” barked out another HAZMAT suit, gesturing impatiently. “This is an active hazard area. Get them to decontamination! And would someone please lock the bloody lunchroom doors?” he snapped as the officer grabbed Rose and Jackie each by the arm to haul them away.

“No, wait!” cried Rose as the officer dragged them back amidst Jackie’s indignant shouts of “Well, that’s nice!” But the officer only pulled them further and further away from the stretcher and the body atop it. “You don’t understand,” Rose pleaded, “I’ve got to check, I have to make sure it isn’t him, I’ve got to—”

But the agent had already managed to tow them to the storage room at the back of the cafeteria, tossing Rose and hauling Jackie inside. Normally stocked to the brim with canned and packaged foodstuffs and paper goods, the storage room was now empty, save the decontamination station rigged up inside; the portable shower stood dark and ominous next to large dispensers of suspiciously unlabeled chemicals that Rose knew would not be intended to touch human skin under absolutely any other circumstances. Rose briefly wondered what on earth they could be dealing with here, just how terribly bad it must be, but shook her head; she didn’t have time to care about that right now. Right now, she had to make sure that corpse wasn’t the Doctor. Nothing else mattered.

“All right,” the HAZMAT-suited officer huffed, turning round to close the doors. “Now that that’s all out of the way—”

“Out of the way my arse,” shouted Jackie. “We’ve got rights, you know!”

“Oh, believe me, Jackie, I know—”

Rose lunged forward, slamming the agent bodily against the doors as she wrenched his arm up his back. “I need to know if that’s my friend lying dead out there,” she spat out over the sound of the agent hissing in pain. “So you can let me check, or I can break your arm. Which’ll it be?”

“Listen, you’ve got it all wrong—”

“Not what I want to hear,” said Rose, twisting the agent’s arm higher still.

“Doesn’t matter if you want to hear it or not, it’s still—blimey, Rose! Go easy, would you? It’s a brand new arm and I’d like to go more than a day without breaking it!”

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in, but once they did, Rose dropped the officer’s arm, her pulse thundering in her ears. She tore off the HAZMAT helmet and threw it to the floor, grabbing the agent by the shoulder so she could whip him round.

Sure enough, it was the new Doctor staring down at her, his eyes wide in bewilderment and his hair absolutely mussed.

Relief surged through her. He was all right. The Doctor was all right. (Only sort-of the Doctor bubbled up faintly in the back of her head, but she ignored it in favor of springing forward to envelope the Doctor in a bone-squeezing hug.)

“Stupid git,” she said breathlessly.

With a pleased little hum, the Doctor hugged her back. “Nice to see you, too. Well-worth the insults and the dislocated shoulder.”

“Shut up,” said Rose, but she didn’t let go, couldn’t do it quite yet, not until she was absolutely certain this was really him and her stupid imagination wasn’t playing tricks on her again. She resisted the urge to bury her face against his chest while her breathing calmed down, but only just. She settled for hugging him harder, instead.

“So why’re you in a suit?” Jackie demanded.

Rose shook herself, willing herself to calm down. Her mother’s presence and the plastic suit digging uncomfortably into her cheek was a timely reminder that no matter how glad she was that the almost-Doctor was alive and well, ultimately, that’s all he was—the almost-Doctor. Not a Time Lord in a brown suit in the TARDIS, but a human bloke, in a blue suit and yellow HAZMAT gear, squeezing her in a hug that was just a little too tight and a lot too full of stiff pointy plastic. He wasn’t the Doctor, no matter how relieved she was to see him, no matter how much her body wanted to believe it, clinging to him like one magnet drawn to another. This wasn’t exactly right. He wasn’t exactly him.

Rose pried herself away so she could swat him on the arm. “Why’d you scare me like that?” she demanded. “And yeah, why are you wearing a suit? Where’d you even get a suit? What’s going on out there?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, frowning and rubbing his arm where Rose struck it, “In order—it wasn’t intentional, it was the only way to get in, I stole it, and you’ve got a mystery medical hazard on your hands resulting in three dead bodies and no clue on what got them. That answer your questions, or are you going to opt for more surprise violence?”

Jackie’s eyes widened. “Three bodies? We only saw one.”

“She was just the first. There are two other scenes just like this elsewhere in the building.”

Rose swore under her breath. Four years of intensive training, teaching her to spot anything that looked out of the ordinary, even in the most innocuous of ways, yet here she’d been, so wrapped up in her own stupid self-pitying thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed anything was amiss, much less that three people were on the brink of death. And now they were gone, nothing she or anyone else could do about it. Gone, just like that. Forever.

(Was it anyone she knew, she wondered? If she hadn’t allowed herself to drown so completely in her own petty nonsense, would she have spotted the problems in time? Was there a chance she could have done something, anything, to help them…?)

Drinking in deep lungfuls of air, Rose centered herself. This wasn’t about her. It was about the three lives lost, the possibility of losing more. Besides, the Doctor was here, or someone enough like him, anyway. That meant the situation, as horrible as it was, was manageable.

Right?

“What happened?” she asked, her voice hard.

“Near as anyone can tell, we’re dealing with some sort of contagion.”

“Any idea what it is?”

The Doctor shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. “Could be naturally-occurring, could be a manufactured bioweapon. All I know is that it’s bad. Really, really bad. Fast-acting, fast-spreading, alters the bodily fluids on a molecular level, resulting in suffocation due to fluid-filled lungs and a fever hot enough to cook the victim from the inside out.”

“Oh Jesus,” Jackie breathed, wincing. She fanned herself with her hand, as if the idea was enough to make her faint. “That’s awful.”

“It certainly is. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And from what I’ve overheard, no one else here has seen anything like it, either—”

“It’s probably got something to do with those labs downstairs,” Jackie sniffed. “Lord knows what you lot get up to in there, making viruses into weapons and things.”

“It doesn’t sound like any UNIT projects I know of,” Rose replied, frowning. “And Pete and I keep a pretty close eye on that sort of thing.”

The Doctor nodded. “We should really look into UNIT’s secure servers just to be certain, in the event that any less-scrupulous employees might be hiding something we should know about. Right now, the prevailing theory amongst the medical team is that we’re dealing with a mutation of the Black Plague, but—”

“Do you think that could be it?” asked Rose.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It just isn’t.”

“Okay, but…” Rose started to say, and stopped.

The Doctor watched her expectantly.

Rose hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt this new Doctor’s feelings just for the hell of it, she really didn’t. But if there was any chance that the UNIT medical team could be right...well, what was more important right now, sparing the sort-of Doctor’s ego, or finding an immediate solution?

(Besides—wouldn’t the real Doctor have figured something out, by now?)

“Is there any chance it could be the Plague, and you’re just overlooking something, or, I don’t know, maybe forgetting?” Rose asked, and the Doctor’s expression cooled. “Maybe all the memories didn’t transfer properly, or—”

“Nope,” the Doctor said cheerfully, his words only a little strained. “Doesn’t work like that. I know everything I knew before and I remember everything I remembered before. Same memories, same knowledge, same reasoning, same feelings, same everything up in the ol’ noodle.”

“Okay, sure, but just—”

“It was me then, and it’s me now,” the Doctor interrupted just a little too brightly, and good grief, even the way his dimple twinged in his cheek was exactly the same as before. “Not a Xerox machine; isn’t as if information was lost in the transfer. I’m not a clone, not a duplicate, not a copy, just me. The only thing that’s changed is the packaging. All right? Does that make sense? Do you understand that?”

Rose laughed nastily. “Well it must be you after all, seeing as you’re still talking to me like I’m some stupid ape too thick to understand anything. At least some things never change, right?”

The Doctor glared at her. Rose glared back. Jackie fanned herself as she watched them both, unimpressed.

He huffed in impatience. “The Black Plague, or Bubonic plague, is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, commonly present in fleas that prey on ground rodents,” he began, his gaze locked on hers. “The most well-known symptom is a series of fluid filled ‘buboes’ located in the neck, the underarms, and the groin, in addition to acute fever, vomiting of blood, and sometimes acral gangrene in the extremities. One can also expect the sudden appearance of a rash, likely caused by the bite of the flea or fleas carrying the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Symptoms typically develop within two to seven days of exposure to the infected rodents, and, if untreated, worsen over time.

“Now,” the Doctor continued, speaking more rapidly the longer he went on despite his chipper tone, “the lack of buboes or rashes present on the victims, in addition to the absence of rodents in the immediately surrounding area, and no reports of rodent outbreaks in the general area, as well as the fact that none of the victims appeared to be presenting symptoms in the two to seven days leading up to their deaths, all suggest that no, this is not, in fact, the Plague, or any permutation thereof. The only symptoms that match are the presence of fever, the vomiting of blood—though it’s worth noting that it appears to be less of a vomiting action, more of an involuntary expulsion post-mortem—and the appearance of black cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues, but anyone with a working set of eyes and nostrils can tell you that the black tissues and disgorged blood are not discolored from the Plague’s trademark necrosis or septicemia, but rather something else altogether. Furthermore, while the Plague has managed to survive in some regions worldwide, its occurrence in this era is quite rare, and its symptoms have barely evolved over time, so unless this universe’s version of the Plague has inexplicably jumped forward a few dozen millennia in its evolutionary timeline apropos of no discernable evolutionary trigger whatsoever, the Plague does not explain the immediate onset of symptoms, nor the total discoloration of the eyes, a symptom present in each victim thus far. Ergo, no, we’re not dealing with the Plague, and just because it’s the most popular theory doesn’t mean it’s correct, and while it’s understandable that your panicking medical team is grasping for a familiar explanation, it’s becoming rapidly apparent that there isn’t one, and just because I don’t know what our mystery contagion is yet, that doesn’t mean I won’t figure it out very shortly. All of which I managed to calculate within precisely 5.26 seconds of hearing the posited diagnosis, precisely the same as I would have done before, in my other body, in the other universe.”

The Doctor drew a deep breath. “Now, does that satisfy your explanatory criteria, or shall I continue wasting time?”

“No, we’re good,” Rose replied. “I appreciate the explanation, though. It’s much better than simply being told to play along, no questions asked.”

“So if it’s not the Plague, then what is it?” asked Jackie before the Doctor had a chance to retort.

He frowned. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Truthfully, I don’t know much about what our killer is, only what it isn’t. I’d really need the sonic to get a good reading on things—oh, I hadn’t even thought of that yet, the sonic,” the Doctor sighed morosely, scratching the back of his neck. “Suppose I’ll have to build myself a new one. I wonder where a fellow can find a half-decent subminiature electroacoustic transducer in this universe—”

Rose fished the sonic screwdriver out of her jacket and presented it to him.

Eyes landing on the sonic, the Doctor fell silent. His gaze flickered from the screwdriver to Rose’s face, back to the screwdriver and up to her face again. Rose forced herself not to flinch beneath his scrutiny.

“How did you get ahold of that?” the Doctor asked slowly. “And why, for that matter?”

“It’s not what you think it is. Or at least, it’s not whose you think it is.”

The Doctor arched an eyebrow in a way that clearly suggested her remark raised more questions than answers.

“Look, do you want it or not?” Rose asked impatiently.

Still eyeing Rose with a healthy dose of wariness, the Doctor took the sonic from her. “Just how many questions have you dodged today, hm?” he asked. “Have you given a straight answer to anyone, about anything?”

Rose didn’t blink. “That’s sort of rich, coming from you.”

The Doctor looked like he wanted to argue, but if so, he must have thought better of it, because the next thing Rose knew, he was scanning himself with the sonic, guiding it over the lines and planes of his suit and helmet. “Nothing to report here, not yet anyway,” he said, glancing at the readings on the screwdriver. “But even without the sonic, it’s obvious that the contagion is fast-acting. None of the victims reported to sickbay with any symptoms, according to the reports, and Miranda certainly wasn’t presenting any symptoms when I spoke to her, except perhaps a mild fever, maybe a little cough.”

“Miranda?” gasped Jackie. “Oh no, not the nice dinner lady?”

The Doctor nodded.

“Oh, what a shame. She didn’t deserve all that.”

“No, she didn’t.”

Rose watched him curiously. “You knew her?”

“Only barely,” the Doctor murmured, his eyes narrowed in focus. Rose glanced down to see what he was looking at, and—ah. So he’d noticed her hand, then, taking in the splint, the swelling, the bandage-job only just hiding a whole host of bruises and tiny cuts. Leaning forward, the Doctor took her hand in his, inspecting it.

“Oh my god, Rose!” snapped Jackie, aghast, jerking Rose’s hand away from the Doctor (and ignoring Rose’s wince of pain). “When did that happen? What did you do?”

Rose cleared her throat and avoided anyone’s gaze, fidgeting uncomfortably. “So you were saying, erm. Miranda and the others were totally fine, right up until they suddenly died.”

“It would seem that way,” replied the Doctor. He was still looking at her hand, as if maybe he was trying to ascertain, without asking, how her fingers came to be in such a state. He gently eased her hand out of Jackie’s grasp and now her fingers were the subject of the sonic screwdriver’s glare, its light bathing her in a ghostly blue glow. “So we’re either dealing with a totally invisible incubation period, or something that can infect and kill you within moments. Still can’t determine how it’s spreading, though; if it were transmittable via air or food or touch, you’d think we’d have a lot more victims by now, considering how quickly the symptoms seemed to manifest, and how many people our dinner lady would have come into contact with today.”

He gently turned Rose’s hand over, running the sonic over it one last time. “Three small tears in the ligaments of the intermediate phalanges,” he announced. “And for some reason, traces of…”

The Doctor trailed off thoughtfully, glancing up at her. “If I asked you what happened here,” he said, his voice light, “would you tell me?”

Rose thought of the Cannon and swallowed against the lump that had sprung up in her throat. “No.”

Jackie tutted impatiently. “Thought as much,” said the Doctor with a nod, and if Rose didn’t know any better, she’d think his shoulders were slumping a little, as if in resignation. As if that was precisely the answer he’d anticipated.

“So, erm. What else do you know about Miranda, then? Anything relevant?” Rose asked, more to fill the silence than anything.

“Not really. She was nice, though. Gave me some free food. And she’s got a boatload of kids at home, sounded like she was taking care of them all on her own. Does UNIT have anything in place, for stuff like that?”

“Yeah.”

“They’ll be well taken-care-of,” Jackie piped up, coughing into her elbow. “We made sure of it, Rose and me.”

“Sort of feels like the least we can do, considering,” Rose muttered.

“Considering?”

Rose worried the inside of her cheek. “I should’ve known something was off. Should’ve noticed straightaway. But I didn’t.”

“Rose Tyler,” said the Doctor, with a sad but knowing smile, “this is not your fault, in any way, shape, or form. You know that, right?”

Rose shrugged. “I know, but—”

“Nope! No buts,” the Doctor said, cheerful once again as Jackie looped one arm round Rose, rubbing her shoulder supportively. “Even I didn’t pick up on anything, and my senses are considerably more attuned than yours—no offense, that’s just how it is, human body or no—so no one could reasonably expect you to anticipate such an occurrence, much less react in time to prevent it. The whole abysmal business is unfortunate, of course. Horrible, even. But as difficult as it can be to admit it, sometimes bad things just…”

Something to the right of Rose caught his attention and the Doctor trailed off, his brow furrowing in worry. “...happen,” he finished a moment later, the word gone faint at the end.

He cleared his throat. “Jackie,” he said, in a tone that very much suggested he was fighting to stay calm, “I don’t suppose you happened to develop a penchant for black nail polish within the last hour or so, did you?”

“God, no. Why?”

The Doctor gestured to the hand resting on Rose’s shoulder; Rose glanced down at it and frowned. Strange, she didn’t remember her mum complaining of any bruises beneath her fingernails, yet here they were, all of them darkening near the nailbed, almost as if she’d got lazy while painting her nails and abandoned the task halfway through, or a series of blood blisters had erupted beneath the skin and she just hadn’t noticed or said anything. But it must not have hurt, or else Jackie surely would have mentioned it by now. In fact, the only thing Rose really noticed was how warm her mum’s hand felt…

Almost feverish.

“What is that?” Rose asked with a composure she did not feel. “On Mum’s hand, that black stuff—what is it?”

In response, the Doctor nudged Rose aside so he could scan Jackie’s face with the sonic, ignoring her indignant little “Oi!” as he blasted blue-white light directly into her eyes; whatever he read on the sonic caused him to pull back with a look of alarm.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie asked, panicking, glancing over her fingernails. “Have I got the thing? Am I sick?”

“We’ve got to get her to an infirmary,” the Doctor told Rose, and she wondered if she’d ever seen him so pale before. Rose’s blood pressure plummeted like a stone. “Now.”

A knock at the door, loud and violent like a battering-ram, made them all jump. “Stay back!” the Doctor shouted through the door, unzipping his HAZMAT gear to reveal that strange new blue suit of his underneath. Fishing around in his suit-pockets, he pulled out a medical mask, slipping it on over Jackie’s head. “We’ve got infected in here!”

Infected. Rose’s head swam at the word.

No voices replied but a knock sounded again, louder this time, heavier. “Move away from the door!” the Doctor called out, but the knocking only got louder and more insistent. “Not a very good batch of listeners, are they?” the Doctor muttered irritably, securing the medical mask in place; Rose tried to move to help but her earlier panic had returned with a vengeance and her arms were trembly and her legs frozen solid.

Her mother was sick just like the others and the others were dead within moments—

“What about you two, though?” Jackie asked the Doctor. Her voice sounded leathery and strange through the mask. “Are you gonna get sick too?”

“Don’t worry about me—I’m still in the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, bursting with all that residual cellular energy. Remember?” he said, and he flashed his right hand at Rose—his fightin’ hand, Rose recalled. “I only stole the suit in the first place so I could sneak in undetected. Rose, on the other hand...”

He froze, glancing up at her, and swallowed. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Rose nodded dumbly, unable to respond over the rushing in her ears, fear threatening to strangle her. She wasn’t too worried about herself. But her mother...

“All right!” the Doctor shouted over the pound-pound-pounding at the door. “We’re coming out now, give us a moment to collect ourselves, won’t you—?”

He threw open the door to reveal a whole host of HAZMAT-clad operatives waiting outside in the cafeteria. The operatives stared, no longer beating at the doors, but now silent and unmoving, watching Rose and Jackie and the Doctor through dark-fogged visors.

Rose gulped. Maybe it was just the lightheadedness swarming up in her skull, but something about all of this felt very, very strange.

(She couldn’t help but notice the blackish-grey stuff dotting the suits here and there, where she could have sworn it hadn’t, before; she couldn’t stop wondering why they were all so quiet, now, couldn’t stop thinking how much the dark impressions behind each visor loomed like shadowy skulls.)

“Can we help you?” asked the Doctor, nonplussed. “Only we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Give it to us,” rasped one of the operatives.

“Right, right, of course,” said the Doctor, glancing from one agent to another to another. “But, erm. Just to make sure we’re on the same page—we’re giving you what, now?”

Wordlessly, one of the agents raised its arm in agonizing slow-motion, pointing inexorably toward Jackie. She shrank back in fear and, unthinking, Rose stepped in front of her.

(But what was wrong with the medical officers? What had happened to them?

They were infected too, weren’t they?

How long did Jackie have, before she became just like them?)

“Interesting,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “Also, nope!”

With that he seized both women by the hand and yanked them away just as an agent came lumbering towards them, arms slicing through the air where Jackie had stood an instant before. The Doctor sprinted for the lunchroom doors, tugging Rose and Jackie along, but one of the operatives caught Jackie and wrenched her back.

“Rose—!” Jackie cried out and in a blink, all the noise left Rose’s head as her UNIT training screamed in like a freight train. Whipping round, Rose punched the heel of her palm into the agent’s wrist, breaking his arm and his grasp before she shoved her mother away to safety. The next suit that lunged for Jackie was met with a knee to the groin and an uppercut to the jaw. Swiping a chair, Rose whipped it at another agent, striking him in the face with a satisfying thwack that threw him bodily backward into the rest of his fellows, knocking them all down in a heap of limbs and screeches.

The Doctor looked on in open-mouthed shock. “What the hell was that?” he spluttered as Rose darted back to him, grabbing him by the hand.

“You’re not the only one who’s changed!” she shouted, pulling him and Jackie in a run.

At the lunchroom entrance, Rose threw aside the plastic sheeting and flipped open the lock, pushing the doors open before springing out into the hall. Knowing she had only seconds before the agents caught up to them, Rose cast all about the corridor, searching desperately for anything that would hold them back—

“Here!” called the Doctor, rushing over to the pile of caretaker’s mops and brooms Rose had knocked to the floor in her earlier haste. He tossed a mop her way and she shoved the pole through the door handles just in time for the agents to hurl themselves against the doors with a mighty WHAM. The force of the impact threw Rose and Jackie to the floor, but Rose glanced back to see that even though the doors were bowing outward, the metal-handled mop bucking violently with every hit and slam, the makeshift barricade stayed put.

(But Jackie was trembling and Rose could hear her wheezing now with every breath she took and—)

“Still think it’s the Plague?” asked the Doctor as he helped Jackie off the floor, pulling her toward the lift.

“Were any of the other victims acting like that before they died?” asked Rose, following after them.

“Not that I’m aware of, though it’s worth noting that our friends in there are acting like that after they died.”

“Wait—they’re dead?” asked Jackie weakly. “But how comes they’re moving and talking and everything?”

“Good question! Haven’t got a clue.”

They reached the lift but before Rose had the chance to tell the Doctor it wouldn’t work—emergency protocol—they had to turn round—they had to go back—he whipped out the sonic and the doors split open in front of him, like magic. Wheezing as she hobbled inside, Jackie clutched at her chest, her face pinched in discomfort.

“How do you know they’re dead?” she choked out.

“Fluid in the lungs,” the Doctor explained, sidling in after her and pulling Rose inside. “You could hear it in their voices, I’m sure—I could hear it in their breathing. A ridiculous amount of nonmucosal viscous fluid blocking the primary, secondary, and tertiary bronchii—no human could survive that.”

He punched in the floor command and slammed the doors-close button. “They’re all dead, Jackie. I’m sorry.”

Jackie coughed and winced at the sound of it. Eyes screwed shut, she slumped back against the lift wall, and Rose darted over to her side as she fought for air, forcing it in and out of her lungs with great effort. In, out. In, out. Like she’d done so many times, without even trying, without even thinking. (Like the people out there would never do again. And was it just Rose, or did Jackie’s breathing sound so much wetter than before?)

The lift arrived with a cheerful ding and the next thing Rose knew, Jackie was sliding down the wall with a groan. But she never met the floor; the Doctor stopped her with a hand on each shoulder, looping an arm round her afterward to heave her back upwards. With a grunt, he hauled her out of the lift, half-supporting, half-dragging her toward the infirmary.

“What’s gonna happen to her?” asked Rose, supporting her mother from the other side. “She’s not gonna end up like those others, is she?”

The Doctor glanced at her and his voice was sharp despite his reassuring smile.

“No.”

**********

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

#ficandchips #tentoo x rose #tentoo x rose week #metacrisis x rose #tentoorose #tentoo is the doctor #jackie tyler #angst #angst with a happy ending #romance #adventure #horror #pete's world #UNIT #anti the turning of the tide #mbb fic #defenders of the altverse

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theforestofeden · 5 years

Text

Isabella and The Others- Sworn Partners

Word Count: 1709

Summary: A backstory involving James and Dalilah, detective work !!

Warnings!: Reader discretion is advised, descriptions of violence may be upsetting to some readers.

June 17th, 1979

"Ted Bundy? Seriously again?" Natasha grinned as she spoke and slid into the chair next to Nick. She poked her head over his shoulder to read the page he was on. He was reading "Ted Bundy, The Killer Next Door." The book was released within the week. Natasha had a feeling Nick camped outside of the local bookstore to get his hands on it.

"You introduced the man to me. How are you going to mock me and then sit down to read with me?" He looked up at her with his eyebrows arched, "As if you haven't read it dozens of times either," he added.

"Oh shut up and scoot over," she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.Nick slid over to give his friend space and turned his attention back to the biography. The two friends sat at the back of their drama class, their heads dipped towards Nick's book. They seemed to be so entranced by the book they had blocked out the commotion going on in the class.

December 23, 1996, present day.

The sounds of someone knocking on her office door settled Dalilah back on earth. Times like this she needed to try to see the good people saw in Nick to want to befriend a monster like him. Natasha had rambled about conversations between her and Nick when asked when her friend first took an interest in murder during her own tapes. Dalilah would take those segments of conversations and fill in the gaps. She usually ended up nowhere and being disgusted by the man even more. Admittedly he wasn't the worst person that she's come across in her time, but since everyone else had gotten their justice Nick was the only current monster she was involved with. It was probably something she would need a psychiatrist to check out. Jem came in holding two cups of coffee and passed the sweeter one to his partner. He sat on the edge of the mahogany desk and looked at the piles of files he had inched aside.

"The Kim's asked for all the information about the newest "Golden State Killer"," Dalilah answered the question that she knew was in Jem's head.

"They're just putting themselves through more pain," he shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. He sounded as if he understood why, but couldn't understand how they were able to see more of their daughter's killer. "The mother had to leave the court room when they showed a clip from that tape. No wonder she burst into tears after she watched ninety percent of it."

"Other than the standard 'they want closure' phrase, I can't explain why they would want to watch and read the information we have of him." The detectives shook their heads in sync.

The standard clock on the wall of her office filled the silence with its monotonous ticking. Dalilah watched the hand move around the clock.

Tick... tick... tick...

She stood up when the clock hit twelve. She couldn't stand the silence between them anymore. The sound of her chair being pushed back caught Jem's attention.

"We should head out." Her voice rang out.

The Kim's had asked her to pull every piece of information the town of Brooklyn had on Nick Barnes. She had only picked up the confession tape. Files still needed to be gathered. Jem followed her out of her office and closed the door softly, his drink still in hand.

"Do you think we'll be able to get him to talk about the other possible murders?" Jem asked. He just wanted the silence between them to be little as possible.

"With his narcissistic ass? Probably. But it'll take time. The serial killers we've heard of took their sweet time. Even up till their death." Dalilah answered, a sharpness to her words.

Jem knew she was talking about Ted Bundy. His name was still buzzing around America, despite being dead for seven years. The same silence that fell over the usual chatty partners back in Dalilah's office fell over them again. A few minutes in and Jem was itching to talk to her again.

"We should talk about what happened two weeks ago." His voice was hushed, like he didn't want others to hear.

"Talk about what? Me saving your ass?" She spoke in a normal leveled voice, one that said she didn't care if people heard.

"About you not having any regard for your life." Jem rose his voice when he realized his partner didn't care about the other detectives knowing what happened.

"We swore an oath to protect each other. That is exactly what I did. I jumped infront of you because you weren't paying attention. That bullet would have gone straight through your chest." She stopped walking and stared at him. She watched the expression on his face change from concern to surprise. She raised her eyebrows before stalking off again. Jem followed wordlessly. He wanted to mention that she shouldn't be at work this soon because of the strain on her wound, but he knew she would be stubborn about it.

Dalilah shouldered open the door to the storage room and begin searching for the row marked "B-C". She grabbed the box marked "Nick Barnes" off of the shelf . The box wasn't heavy like everyone expected. There were only five measly folders of information in the one box they had of the suspected "mission" serial killer. After two decades, the killer was just now coming forward about the victims. As of now Nick was only talking about his first— Isabella Kim. Everyone that worked on his case suspected that there were others. A police officer that escorted him to his cell had reported Nick mumbling names. The cop had been able to catch one name; Carina.

"More like shoved me out of the way but whatever." He mumbled. "I just don't know why you have no regard for your safety." Jem said. He needed to talk about the incident. He couldn't stop thinking about that day.

They had been out on a standard questioning when the pair heard shots fire off and then the crackle of their Car radio sounding off, filling their Impala with the voice of the dispatcher. "All available units respond to a 211 in progress at the Wells Fargo bank between Sepúlveda Boulevard and Westchester Parkway. Two suspects, both white males wearing black hoodies and jeans, armed and dangerous. Code three. Multiple shots fired."

It wasn't every day this pair of detectives were in an active shooting zone, let alone firing off their own guns. Dalilah started the Chevy Nova as Jem picked up the radio speaker.

"10-4, responding code three to Wells Fargo at Sepúlveda Boulevard and Westchester Parkway." He placed the speaker on its receiver and switched on the mini siren on top of the dashboard.

Pulling up to the bank was hectic. It wasn't like the two of them knew directly where the suspects were, so Dalilah really only had one option; to pull up to the other two squad cars that were already there. The movements of four cops shooting and dodging filled their senses. The two scrambled out of their car and stuck low to the ground. Or at least until Jem needed to reload his pistol. Going to the trunk of the Nova let him have a moment of security, but he had mixed up the direction he had came from. Instead of going right he went left, slamming the magazine into place. A gut wrenching feeling had told Dalilah to stand up and to shove him and thank the universe she did. She heard the shatter of her car window before she felt the stray bullet. The way they faced each other allowed for Dalilah's right shoulder to catch the bullet instead of Jem's heart.

"That's gonna leave a stain." Dalilah murmured as she doubled over onto the ground.

Jem's hands had already pressed themselves to her shoulder and warm blood already coated his large hands. "You ate a bullet and a stain is what you're worried about." Jem spoke mostly to himself, but he didn't shy his comment away from his partner. Despite the leveled voice he was using Dalilah could see him panicking.

"James, call an ambulance."

Seeing Dalilah bleed like that haunted him. If only he had kept track of which direction he was going in she wouldn't have gotten hit. Little did he know she would do it again and again for him. The only thing that would haunt Dalilah would be if she hadn't moved in front of him.Before walking out of the storage room, Dalilah stopped and looked at him. A little bit longer than necessary. She saw one of her worst fears flash before her mind's eye—her partner in the Intensive Care Unit. It wasn't so much that she had no regard for her life, but rather too much regard for Jem's life.

"And if this was you right now- wait it wouldn't be because you'd be dead or in the hospital. That bullet would be in your chest. I think with it in my shoulder and you alive is a win for both of us." She paused as Jem opened the door for her. "Besides, everyone looks at us like we're gods for escaping death."

The two settled back into Dalilah's office. Jem had pulled up a chair from one of the rookies' desks and was leaning on his partners mahogany desk. His coffee cup sat on top of a file, seemingly unimportant. As soon as Dalilah was back at her desk, she removed the cup and picked up the file. A ring was left in its place and she swatted Jem with it before handing it to him. Opening up the file, Jem realized why she had gotten irritated. The files he had pushed aside earlier and the one in his hand where missing women. More specifically women who looked like Miranda Cahill and were named Carina."Our night shift starts now," Dalilah said. She took a sip of her coffee and began digging into the files of case 243.

Oblivious to both of them was the fact that they both hoped for the silence to disappear. Regardless of being uncomfortable, neither of them tried to break the silence nor leave the other’s side. The monotonous sound of the clock and flipping of papers was better with company.

Part 3- Carina Romano

#true crime #crimefiction #crime #crime mystery #ted bundy #psychology #lapd

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