Metaphysical

Realm of Possibility, G, 1775 words

agapi42 — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 07:07:12 GMT

Title: Realm of Possibility
Characters/Pairings: Liz/TARDIS
Rating: G
Word Count: 1775
Summary: Not everything conforms to the scientific rules Liz knows.
Notes: Written for daystarsearcher in the dw_femslash ficathon. Apologies for lateness. Many thanks to janeturenne for the beta.

Liz was lost.

The Doctor was carrying out another of the experiments that occupied his every minute when the Brigadier was not demanding his services as Scientific Advisor (and more than a few when he was), and had sent her to read out a display so he could measure the effect of his work.

“You can’t miss it. Just round the corner.”

Several corners later, Liz was willing to admit she was lost.

“Liz!”

Frowning, unable to quite place the voice but certain she recognised it, Liz followed the sound.

Stepping through a doorway, her foot failed to find a floor on the other side. She fell forwards, a sickening lurch in her stomach, and found herself floating, staring downwards. No gravity: that explained the nausea. There was a floor some way down, she saw, covered in roundels. So that was the wall, and the room was at ninety degrees to the corridor, in addition to the zero-gravity field. Somehow, she doubted this was the effect the Doctor had intended.

“Take my hand,” came the voice again, somewhere to the left. Liz turned her head, took hold of the familiar hand, and allowed herself to be pulled within grabbing distance of a console that looked very similar to the one the Doctor had been fussing over, two left and seven right corners ago. With a handhold, she was able to orient herself the right way up relative to the room and finally take a look at her familiar helper, floating on the other side of the console.

It was her.

“There we are! It’s nice to meet you, Liz.”

Or at least it looked like her, hair a wild cloud around the woman’s head. Liz was grateful her hair was tied back, to keep it out of the way.

“Have we met?”

“Hmm? Oh, in a way, in a way. I’m the TARDIS,” the woman said, and gave the console a pat.

“The TARDIS? But you’re just a machine!”

“Oh yes, quite. In the same way you’re just meat.” She smiled brightly.

It was quite disturbing the way another intelligence altered her features, her expressions odd in an ill-defined way, the cadences and emphases of her voice changed. As if she didn’t recognise herself in a mirror.

“And you look like me.”

“You’re lost,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Liz would have crossed her arms if she could; instead, she settled for a raised eyebrow by way for further prompt.

“It’s always nice to see a friendly face when you’re lost, isn’t it?”

A light flashed on the console, and the TARDIS stretched across the console towards it, grumbling, “No, no, not like that. That’s not helpful.”

Liz blinked.

The Liz-TARDIS had one arm reaching for a switch by the light, one arm turning a dial a handspan away, and one arm tapping buttons on the other side of the console. There was probably a fourth arm, Liz thought, maintaining her handhold on the console.

“That’s better,” the TARDIS said, and caught the direction of Liz’s gaze. She pushed herself away from the console and floated above it, anchored by the grip of her lower hands. She had no legs, the two extra arms emerging from culottes in their place. “Do you like it? Genetic engineering of the...” She frowned, the date evidently escaping her. “I could have legs, but I seem to have forgotten how. Anyway,” she continued, cheering up, “arms are useful!”

Another light flashed on the console, and the TARDIS curled in on herself, gasping, the knuckles on her lower hands turning white where they gripped her console, as she pressed her upper hands to her side.

“Are you all right?” Liz pulled herself around to the other side of the console. “You’re bleeding!”

“Don’t...”

“Let me see, I’m a doctor.” It took a second for Liz to realise just how far outside her field of practice this patient was, but by that time she was already reaching out.

Suddenly flung back to the doorway, Liz caught at the door frame, bending back her fingers but barely conscious of it as her skin sang and her eyes welled and her mind burned with images of people and places and time and space and the beauty of the universe. She struggled to draw a breath, so much, so much, she had seen so much.

“What did you do that for?” the TARDIS choked out, her eyes burning. “I go to all the trouble of drawing you into this side dimension to save you from being flooded by artron energy, and you go and do that?” She took a breath, grimaced. “How are you?”

Liz blinked to try and clear the delicate golden filigree criss-crossing her vision. “Fine, I think.”

“Tell him to stop. He means well, but we’ve both forgotten...” Her lips tightened. “Tell him there’s a leak in D43. And that the machine reads 547366. He’s just round the corner.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Liz muttered.

“I’ll make sure of it. Please.”

With one look back, Liz swung herself round and back out into the corridor. She landed heavily, trapped by gravity, but her mind was still soaring.

***

The console room was empty, so Liz walked further into the TARDIS.

“Doctor,” she called, “are you finished? The Brigadier’s found another set of Christmas lights but he doesn’t want to turn them on till you’re there.” She stopped to listen for a reply that was not forthcoming. “So he can be sure you won’t blow them up again,” she muttered to herself and took a sip from the brandy balloon she held.

She choked on it as she was yanked backwards and spun round. The glass and its contents went flying, all to end up floating in the zero-gravity field.

“Merry Christmas, Liz,” the TARDIS grinned, her lower arms wrapped around Liz’s hips as she leaned backwards and snapped a drop of brandy out of the air.

Liz’s skin hummed with remembered sensation at her touch; a frisson of fear curled around her stomach and crept down her legs at the power so close to her, but she ignored it to ask, “Isn’t that dangerous? It could get in your systems.”

The TARDIS looked puzzled. “I thought that was the point of alcohol. And that wasn’t your first.”

“I mean the mechanics; the Doctor’s probably left a few exposed.”

“My mechanics are perfectly safe.”

“Apart from the possibly-fatal part you just saved me from?”

“Oh no, nothing like that this time,” she assured her, and tumbled them over. Liz clung on, eyes wide open as her surroundings tilted and turned in a way that wasn’t possible under Earth’s physical laws, and joined the TARDIS in laughing. “I just wanted a dance.”

“Have you ever danced with the Doctor?”

“Yes.” The TARDIS smiled, and her gaze was wide and unfocused, encompassing vast distances. She closed her eyes, opened them, and they were sharp on Liz again, the one fixed point as she turned them in the air. “But we can’t do that anymore. I still want to dance but he can’t understand me.”

Liz took a breath. “Do you have to look like me?”

“No,” the TARDIS said mildly. “What would you like me to look like?”

Liz shook her head. Her hair drifted in her wake. “Someone else. Someone I don’t know,” she added.

There was no shift, no discernible instant of change. It was just that one moment Liz was looking at her own image, and the next at a dark-skinned, dark-eyed woman.

“Better?” the woman said, and the features had changed but the expression hadn’t.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The dance they performed didn’t have a name and wasn’t in any instruction book, Liz was sure: riotous, nauseating, performed in four dimensions. Her skirt noticed the absence of gravity, droplets of brandy got caught in her hair, they bounced off walls and Liz laughed for sheer experience outside the scientific rules she knew so well.

She decided she’d had enough to drink.

Then she decided, if this was her life, she hadn’t had nearly enough.

***

Liz walked without thinking about it, and found herself somewhere she recognised.

“Hello,” she called, standing in the doorway.

“Hello, Liz.” The TARDIS turned from her console, still in the form she’d taken at Christmas, Liz noted. “How did you get here?”

“I got lost.”

The TARDIS smiled. “I’m clever like that.”

“I came to say thank you.” The TARDIS leaned back against the console, her smile seeming a little fixed, as Liz continued, “Most of what turns up here, that I’ve dealt with as a member of UNIT, it’s ugly, hostile. You showed me...more.”

“I was thinking,” the TARDIS said, suddenly alive, animated, swarming over her console, “since I never got you a Christmas present, how about a trip? I’ll take you somewhere, you can see it for yourself.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere, anywhen you want.”

Liz already knew where she wanted to go. “Cambridge.”

“Cambridge Four? New Cambridge?”

“England, Earth.”

“1979’s very nice. I’ve been there. I will be there.” She frowned, obviously struggling with the limitations of the English language.

“I’ll get there in my own time,” Liz said. “Now.”

The TARDIS pushed away from the console and made her way towards the doorway.

“It’s just,” Liz continued, “... you’re stuck. Hoping to be released, hoping the Doctor will fix you one day. And, while that’s not pleasant, you’ve got time to wait. I... I haven’t.”

“I know,” the TARDIS murmured sadly, half to herself.

“I can release myself, I can move on, and I should. Because knowing you and the Doctor is an adventure, but I’ve my own to live.”

The TARDIS wrapped her lower limbs around Liz’s waist, upper around her neck. Her mouth was as cool as her skin, the same mild startlement as the brush of the Doctor’s hand. In the kiss, Liz tasted a few last sparks of that astonishing knowledge, that incredible beauty that was everything the TARDIS was, and chased it hungrily.

She had to leave.

“Answer me one thing?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

The TARDIS pressed a hand against the wall. “The one who grew me. She left me a long time ago, but I remember.”

“Will you remember me?”

The TARDIS reached across the threshold one more time and laid a hand against her cheek. “Yes.”

***

“Doctor?” Liz blinked at the unexpected figure on her doorstep.

“Hello, Liz. Jo and I were just on our way to Betelgeuse and I thought you might like to see it.”

Liz looked at him, at the girl beside him, and the blue box behind them, and made her choice.

***

Note: For the story of the genetically modified four-armed people, see Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold. Which is to say, the idea belongs to her and I have stolen it.

This entry was originally posted at http://agapi42.dreamwidth.org/143556.html. There are comments there.

Gallifrey podfics!

agapi42 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:02:19 GMT

I really wanted to contribute to morepolitics. These are unbelievably late.

Title: A Time of Mourning
Author: janeturenne
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: K-9 II, Leela
Summary: Set just after Gallifrey: Imperiatrix: Leela isn't the only one affected by the loss of her K-9.
Duration: 01:10 / 1.8 MB
Download: A Time of Mourning (MP3)

Title: Amalgamation
Author: neveralarch
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: Torvald, Andred
Summary: Andred, settling in.
Duration: 03:19 / 3.4 MB
Download: Amalgamation (MP3)

Title: Different Men
Author: janeturenne
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairings: Andred/Leela
Summary: The man who calls himself Torvald can't stop thinking of a man named Andred's wife...
Duration: 02:23 / 2.2 MB
Download: Different Men (MP3)

Title: Smile (The Contrast Remix)
Author: agapi42
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: Narvin/Romana, implied Four/Romana
Summary: Narvin knows Romana to scowl, frown and glare. He doesn't allow himself to remember her smile.
Duration: 05:09 / 4.7 MB
Download: Smile (The Contrast Remix) (MP3)

Title: The Little Orange Planet
Author: yoshimonkey
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: Romana, Narvin, Torvald, original character, Brax
Summary: Just a set of standalone vignettes prompted by dictionary.com's word-of-the-day. All are set within the Gallifrey series universe and the vast majority feature canon characters, mostly Romana, Narvin, and Brax so far.
Duration: 10:51 / 9.9 MB
Download: 1. Flounce 2. Parergon 3. Metaphrastic 4. Substrate 5. Darkle (all MP3)

Title: Time Changes
Author: agapi42
Fandom: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: Braxiatel, Narvin
Summary: Braxiatel is used to meeting people from his personal future. Usually himself. He didn't expect Narvin.
Duration: 03:21 / 3.1 MB
Download: Time Changes (MP3)

This entry was originally posted at http://agapi42.dreamwidth.org/141586.html. There are comments there.

And Everything to Lose, PG-13, 3163 words

agapi42 — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:59:44 GMT

Title: And Everything to Lose
Characters/Pairings: alt!Romana/alt!Narvin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3163
Summary: "As your husband, I would have nothing to gain from your death and everything to lose."
Notes: Set in the AU of Gallifrey 4.4: Forever. Many thanks to janeturenne for the ever-so-helpful beta, the title and the original inspiration.

In a lifespan of centuries, the first eight years are utterly insignificant. A period of ignorance humiliating both for the family at the time and the individual in hindsight, to be endured then hurriedly forgotten.

For Narvin, only one memory from this time stands out. He was on holiday with his family at Lake Abydos. Years after his appointment as Chancellor, he’ll realise he can’t remember the child’s name or House or what she looked like; she has become Romana in his head, and isn’t that perfectly representative of what his life is now, that he can’t keep her out of even the earliest bit of himself he has?

“I’m the heir to Heartshaven,” the dark haired Time Tot declared, her small hands on her hips and her chin tilted upwards. “I’m better than you. So you have to be the slave.”

---

It isn’t that Narvin hasn’t noticed sons and daughters of Great Houses ascend the political ladder rather quicker than their merit accounts for. It isn’t that he doesn’t recognise that he has to work twice as hard for maybe a quarter of the recognition, just because of his House and its low place in the hierarchy. It isn’t that he doesn’t know that every member of the Inner Council comes from Goodlight, Lungbarrow, Warpsmith, Firebrand or Heartshaven. He isn’t an idealistic fool.

That is precisely why he turns down the offer of a place in Vansell’s Outer Chamber. It’s true enough that members of those five Houses are a small minority of the population, but they dominate the upper echelons of Gallifrey’s power structure. The Outer Chamber is a mere nuisance to the Inner Council, and only its utter powerlessness and the tradition of its existence prevents it from being squashed like a flutterwing. No, the only power on Gallifrey is that of the Inner Council. Narvin needs power to best serve his planet’s interests. So he’ll beat the nobility at their own game, even if he has to play with half a deck of marked cards. He’s good enough. He’ll prove it.

---

President Borusa goes mad towards the end of his life. Vansell celebrates the unprecedented concessions made to the Outer Chamber. Narvin studies his fellow Councillors, judging who will act first. He keeps his hand unobtrusively near his staser, in case one of them should decide the first ever appointment of a member of a lesser House to a seat on the Inner Council was an early sign of the President’s madness and seek to rectify it. Too unobtrusively for Chancellor Delox, who grows impatient and decides to enact his policies before he attains the Presidency.

He isn’t surprised when Councillor Romanadvoratrelundar, heir to Heartshaven, takes the Presidency after Borusa’s sudden death. Several have paid the price of underestimating her; Narvin has always been careful not to. Unlike the late Delox, Romana is intelligent enough to accord him the same regard.

He is surprised when, having survived, schemed and stasered her way into the highest office, she turns round and takes him as her Chancellor.

“Narvinnektrolonum,” she says, her tongue flicking contemptuously around the too-few syllables, “it’s not an offer.”

---

Second sunset has fallen by the time Narvin’s last meeting finishes, and he makes his way to his chambers. His President will require a report of the results, but she never works late and does not, he discovered quickly, appreciate being disturbed after suns-set.

He stops in front of his door. The lock is disengaged. His door has been opened without any of his lethal alarms being triggered. Either by a remarkably intelligent assassin, or someone with a Presidential override, or both, though he considers that a remote possibility. An assassin wouldn’t be careless enough to leave the lock visibly disengaged: it could be a bluff, but far better to let him assume all is normal.

Narvin hasn’t survived five years as Chancellor by taking chances. Twenty microspans later, he has reached the door that opens from the passageway into his chambers. His staser is in his hand, as it has been all during his trip down the passage, though it seems no-one has disturbed the spiders since he was last down here. It would be a truly exceptional assassin who was aware of the existence of these secret passages.

Narvin stands against the wall as the door slides open. No staser bolts come flying through. This passage comes out in the bathroom, which has excellent acoustics. The slightest whisper of breath or click of weaponry would be easily audible. He listens, and is satisfied no-one is waiting for him to step out.

If there are assassins, they’re likely to hide in his bedroom, to surprise him later. If not, he expects to find his visitor in the living room. He enters the living room with his staser in readiness, nevertheless.

Romana is seated in his favourite chair and looks up as he enters the room. “Narvin!” He is gratified to see genuine surprise on her face for an instant, before she composes herself. “Do put your staser away. You’re not going to shoot me.”

“Supreme Leader.” Narvin does as he’s told.

“Help yourself” – he notices she’s holding a glass of what looks like his best Cadonian brandy – “and sit down,” Romana says, gesturing at the chair opposite, one of his least favourite chairs, reserved for guests. “You took your time, Chancellor. Have you been in there all this time?”

“I’m sorry,” he says dryly, “I wasn’t expecting guests. I assumed you would be paying Guard Commander Andred a visit.” He pours himself a small measure, noting the new lower level, before taking the indicated seat. He’d rather be clear-headed for whatever this will be about.

Romana takes a sip. “Was your meeting successful?”

“You will have the report by first sunrise-” he starts. The matter isn’t so important as to warrant her attention now rather than in nine spans time, and is clearly just an opening gambit.

“I’d like a report now, Narvin.”

“I still need to follow up on-”

“A preliminary report then.”

Narvin pauses, to mentally edit and simplify his planned report. “It seems clear that Commentator Antimon was the link to that terrorist Shobogan rabble. He provided them with the information on the movements of Councillors that led directly to Councillor Matthias’s assassination.”

“Assassination?”

“The fatal assault upon Councillor Matthias,” Narvin corrects himself.

“Do the Chancellery have any leads yet on where they obtained an incendiary rifle?”

“Not as yet.”

“That’s a priority, Chancellor. We can’t have Shobogans running around with incendiary rifles.”

Narvin would agree, remembering Matthias’s blackened body, twisted by aborted regeneration, but he doubts it’ll be a problem, unless Romana makes a habit of handing them out like it’s Otherstide. “I will be sure to inform you of any progress, Supreme Leader.”

She pauses. “Unless further evidence arises that would merit a harsher sentence, send Antimon to the work battalion at Project Rassilon on the next rotation. He can die with his co-conspirators.”

He nods, and waits for whatever’s coming next.

“This is good brandy,” Romana says idly.

Narvin can be patient. Romana is always demanding faster results, results on demand, but sometimes events unfold more slowly. You set your trap and wait for it to be triggered. Narvin can be patient, but he doesn’t even know what kind of trap is waiting for him.

“I believe Councillor Braxiatel bought several cases,” he says cordially.

Romana takes another sip. There is silence for a microspan, and Narvin flashes over the most recent issues, and older ones, trying to work out what this might actually be about.

“The Lord Burner reported that Councillor Morissa died in custody.”

“A suicide pill,” Narvin says, sincerely regretful. “The guards have been punished for missing it.” He flashes hot and cold – this is it, Romana is severely displeased with her inability to execute yesterday’s would-be assassin – and raises his glass to his lips to cover the moment.

When the silence stretches and Romana seems disinclined to continue the topic, he ventures, “I have selected a new Presidential taster, Supreme Leader,” because damn it, he wants to know.

“Nothing ever tastes as good when it’s been tasted for me. And it slows the whole process down, it’s so irritating.” If it wasn’t a capital offence (it’s surely a capital offence), Narvin would think the Supreme Leader was pouting. She sighs. “Send them along tomorrow. As for tonight...you have cheese, Narvin?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader?”

“Cheese goes very well with brandy. Soonwell, for preference.”

When she leaves, a dozen biscuits later, he still doesn’t know, and spends the night running their conversations through this mind, over and over, reviewing every expression that crossed her face, to see if he’s missed anything, some kind of code, or if he’s forgotten something that would clarify everything. It’s so frustrating.

---

The double sunshine streaming through the window makes Romana’s hair and robes shine bright as Narvin reports the day’s progress. He adds this to the bank of Romana-memories he’s now uncomfortably aware of collecting.

“The Chancellery Guard have located and captured the saboteurs, and Overseer Thracken assures me we should be back on schedule within a few spans, though there will be a corresponding cost in slave lives.”

Romana gives a short nod. “Fine.” She purses her lips, the fury still in her eyes, but hardened to a calculating gleam. “I’ll devise their executions this afternoon. Tell the Burner I will see him at first sunset.”

“Yes, my Lady President.”

“And Chancellor?” She steps out from behind her desk.

“Supreme Leader?”

She grabs the front of Narvin’s robes and pulls his mouth to hers.

Oh. Oh.

That clarifies things. The satisfaction of a puzzle solved is mixed with this dark deep in his chest, and he’d known it in the past week, figured himself out, but he hadn’t realised its extent. It makes no sense, and is all the more dangerous for that, an unpredictable unknown.

She tightens her grasp on his robes and his hands end up on her hips.

He fancies he can taste the cheese and brandy of two weeks ago. She ate his food and drank his drink and trusted him with her body.

It is simple. It is more than is wise. It will be enough.

---

Narvin watches the Lady President very closely at all times. He is in charge of her security, after all, and defence of her security must begin with him. But he might watch her a little closer in moments such as these, hoarded over ten years, memorise every detail that no-one else can see.

Her hair in disarray. Her eyes closed. Her skin damp and flushed, and he’s traced that flush before, down to her breasts, now rising and falling with breaths deeper than normal. Her mouth is slightly curved in triumph, and a shade of softer pleasure, perhaps.

He takes this all in – Romana, Romana, and she’s so much more besides – and the words are out of his mouth before he’s aware.

“Marry me.”

Her eyes snap open. Whatever her appearance, he reminds himself, she’s never vulnerable. He hates that she can make him so, even for a moment. He knows this is nothing. He’s simply serving his Supreme Leader. Nevertheless, he has no desire to see it end, and she’s already out of bed and dressing, her back to him.

She doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t say anything. Neither does she, till she’s on her way out.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She still doesn’t look at him. The door slides shut behind her.

---

She’s back the next night, letting herself into his quarters without permission, as usual. She makes no mention of it and he’s careful to guard his tongue, over a glass of Heartshaven wine and afterwards.

But in the dark, alone in his bed, he thinks about it. It had been a reckless, ill-timed impulse, but the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. It isn’t that he doesn’t recognise he’s a mere convenience for her, both in government and in private. He isn’t an idealistic fool. But that doesn’t negate the power of his position; the situation stands nevertheless. A contract would be a logical, not to mention precedented, step to consolidate their power and secure their positions.

---

At her command, Narvin enters the Presidential office.

“My Lady President,” he greets, by way of announcing himself, and crosses the room to stand before her as she sits at her desk.

Romana doesn’t bother to look up. “What is it, Chancellor?”

Narvin places his hands, palm-up, on the desk in front of him. “I, Narvinnektrolonum of the House of -”

“No, Narvin.” She speaks over him; he continues regardless.

“-now formally propose a contract of marriage between myself and Romanadvoratrelundar, heir to the High House of Heartshaven, inheritor of the House of Dvora, conqueror of the House of Everstone -”

“Stop.” Her voice is as hard as it’s ever been.

He does.

“Get out and stop wasting my time, Narvin.”

“Romana” – she glares – “Supreme Leader,” he amends, “a contract between the President and the Chancellor has precedent. Imperiatrix Pandora and Chancellor Torkal-”

“You’re proposing to conspire with whoever will listen, overthrow my glorious rule, and plunge the planet into centuries of civil war?” She pointedly returns her attention to her work. “Really, Narvin, I’d expect better from you. That’s not a compelling argument.”

“There are several precedents of such contracts, dating from Pandak’s attempt to establish a dynasty, when it was ruled no member of a President’s immediate family could succeed them. As your husband, I would have nothing to gain from your death and everything to lose. It would be a clear consolidation of your power and would secure your position from the most obvious avenue of attack.”

Romana carries on working, signing a document, sending it, and opening another file, a report of the latest work on Project Rassilon. He doubts she’s reading it: she’s only interested in the end result, not the details of further failure. “I don’t need to buy your loyalty, Narvin. I picked you as my Chancellor because you could never hold the Presidency. The Inner Council would never support you. So my assassination would bring you no advantage.”

Intellectually, he has known this. He supports Romana not because he wouldn’t be a better President – he would – but because, together, they are the best for Gallifrey. Together, they have the determination and the power to succeed with Project Rassilon, and realise their people’s ultimate destiny as Time Lords. Besides, who would be his Chancellor? Darkel, with links to the Outer Chamber, in silent agreement with their opposition of Project Rassilon? Councillor Braxiatel is one of Project Rassilon’s most fervent supporters, but Narvin would be measuring his life expectancy in microspans the moment Braxiatel came within a staser bolt of the presidency. The same can be said of every member of the Inner Council. There is no-one he can trust as Romana does him; no-one in his situation; no-one with the intelligence.

“The Inner Council -”

Romana looks up, stands up and leans over her desk towards him. “I took you into my bed for the same reason. Andred had become uninteresting, and you were convenient and had even less to gain. Andred...” She steps out from behind her desk and he is uncomfortably reminded of that first move, a decade ago. “Andred might have betrayed me for another candidate, one who promised promotion and considerations. He’d have been a fool to believe them, but he might’ve. You won’t, Narvin.”

He’s surprised at the slight sting her words cause. The Supreme Leader has always taken him for granted, from the moment she assigned him this job. He doesn’t seek her praise; his work is much easier when she doesn’t concern herself with it. But she is right. That is why her words sting. Narvin doesn’t like to be predictable.

She curls her fingers in his robes and smiles. “There is nothing better for you, Chancellor. You only survive as long as I do.”

She kisses him, and he kisses back. She pushes him against the wall and he hates her, he loves her, and he hates himself for loving her.

---

She – not Romana, not his Lady President, an imposter – glares up at him from her seat in front of the screens.

“And, not to put too fine a point on it, Chancellor, as my second in command, you stand to gain the most from my death.”

He is absolutely certain. The double story was ridiculously weak, the idea that the President would develop a sudden interest in the technical aspects of Project Rassilon extremely unlikely, and now she has espoused the exact opposite view to what she’s been saying for twenty years. Romana has many traits, and they are, she is – was – consistent.

“Of course,” he says smoothly, recycling his old argument before he consciously thinks of it, “but then I assume that’s why you married me. As your husband, I have nothing to gain from your death and everything to lose.”

Her face is quite a study. If he wasn’t already sure, that would convince him he’s speaking to a different woman. His Supreme Leader would be scornful.

“If this is another proposal, Narvin, spare us both.”

Scorn is nowhere on this woman’s face. She looks shocked, disappointed...a little wistful?

“Oh, Romana,” she murmurs, seemingly to herself.

“Disregarding the obvious romantic advantages, of course,” he adds, because he can.

Her face shifts through another spectrum of expressions, settling on what seems to be dawning consideration. She doesn’t say anything.

“Supreme Leader?” he prompts.

“Romantic?” she repeats, before recollecting herself. “But of course, I was a fool ever to question your loyalty.”

The very idea of Romana calling herself a fool! Laughter bubbles out of him, harsh.

“I knew you weren’t the real Romana. As if I’d marry that loathsome shrew.”

Invested with all the venom he can muster towards both Romana and...this woman, the words still sound hollow to him.

He’d known it wasn’t possible almost the moment he said the words less than half a span ago, when she mounted the rostrum to announce her survival. He has watched the Supreme Leader very carefully at all times, and this imposter is wrong in a myriad little ways. But still...

He hates the woman standing in front of him more than he does – did – Romana, for that small measure of ridiculous, pathetic hope.

His Supreme Leader, his President – Romana is dead and so much more with her.

---

There is still Project Rassilon.

Power over space and time seems closer now than any time before. If he can keep control for a little longer, if he can succeed before anyone else discovers the deception, his people can still achieve their destiny, their right. He can lead them to the future, to all of time, as all-powerful Time Lords. He can be Rassilon.

There will be no question as to Romana’s successor.

This entry was originally posted at http://agapi42.dreamwidth.org/141519.html. There are comments there.

Yay for people posting about this while I was sunk in gloom

agapi42 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:02:21 GMT

Originally posted by x_losfic at To UK Flisties

Originally posted by obstinatrix at To UK Flisties

Originally posted by de_nugis at To UK Flisties

(Taken most recently from amberdreams, slightly adapted.)

If you're from the UK and you believe in freedom of speech and an uncensored interenet, you really need to sign this petition. There are others floating about, but that particular one is the best way to ensure that your voice gets heard. It's hosted on the directgov website and addresses parliament directly. If it gets more than 100,000 signatures, it becomes eligible for discussion in the House of Commons.

Everyone's been getting so worked up over SOPA -- and rightly so -- that ACTA seems to have slipped under the radar. This is hugely problematic, because ACTA is a similar bill, but it has the potential to be far more damaging than SOPA ever could be.

Some people seem to have this misconception that ACTA is the 'European SOPA', but that simply isn't true. It's a global treaty, and it's already been signed by eight countries, including the US, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. Europe votes on Thursday. If they vote 'no', the bill will have to be taken back to the drawing board and reformulated, which should buy us some time at the very least.

If you think this doesn't affect you, you're wrong. If ACTA passes, it could well signal the end of the internet as we know it, and that isn't an exaggeration. It's not just about watching movies and television online. If ACTA passes, sites like YouTube, Livejournal, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and even Google and Wikipedia could become impossible to maintain. ACTA would allow ISPs to monitor your net activity and cut off internet access for your entire household if one person is suspected of breaching copyright. Think Big Brother is Watching. I don't think I need to emphasise just how damaging it can be to be without internet access in this day and age, when we rely so heavily on technology.

It's not only bloggers and fandom that would be affected, either. Small businesses, independent film-makers and unsigned musicians who have previously found their niche online would also suffer hugely, and would be at risk of being bullied into submission by Hollywood and multinational corporations under accusations of copyright infringement. All those artists who found fame by uploading covers of songs to YouTube would never have had the opportunity to do so under ACTA, as those cover versions would be prohibited.

I know the internet has its problems, but to my mind it's the single greatest invention to come out of modern times, and it would be an absolute travesty if we were to lose that now. From a personal point of view, I can't even put into words how important this is to me. I've met some of my closest friends through the internet and online fandom, people whom I would likely never have met without it, and it's given me this amazing social support system. I don't want that to end here, and I want to preserve it for future generations so that they can have the same experience and opportunities I've been given through my online interactions.

I know that opinions on the seriousness of copyright infringement and online piracy vary wildly, but that isn't really the point. Internet giants such as Google are opposed to this bill, and it's pretty safe to say that they're not in favour of copyright infringment, as anyone who's ever had a fanvid taken down from YouTube will be painfully aware. Whatever your stance on copyright, this isn't the way to go about dealing with it. This is dangerous legislation that impeaches on some of our most basic human rights, such as the right to privacy and freedom of speech.

So if you're from the UK, please, please sign the petition. If you hail from elsewhere in the world, there may well be similar movements in your own country, but I think the most effective thing anybody can do right now is to keep talking about this. Talk about it on Livejournal, on Twitter, on Tumblr, on Facebook, and anywhere else you can think of. Make sure this issue is never far from people's minds. The internet is an amazingly powerful tool: let's utilise it while we still have the chance.

Please repost and spread the word :)

SAY NO TO ACTA!

Please consider reposting this, especially if you have a large proportion of UK flisties. And please consider spreading the word via other platforms: Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, your own personal network.

I went to post this on Facebook and found my friend's father had died. I didn't sleep that night.

agapi42 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:53:47 GMT

Originally posted by electricdruid at The fiasco continues

ACTA in a Nutshell –

What is ACTA? ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A new intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan, with Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada recently announcing that they will join in as well.

Why should you care about ACTA? Initial reports indicate that the treaty will have a very broad scope and will involve new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology.”

What is the goal of ACTA? Reportedly the goal is to create new legal standards of intellectual property enforcement, as well as increased international cooperation, an example of which would be an increase in information sharing between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies.

Essential ACTA Resources -

Read more about ACTA here: ACTA Fact Sheet
Read the authentic version of the ACTA text as of 15 April 2011, as finalized by participating countries here: ACTA Finalized Text
Follow the history of the treaty’s formation here: ACTA history
Read letters from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden wherein he challenges the constitutionality of ACTA: Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Read the Administration’s Response to Wyden’s First Letter here: Response
Watch a short informative video on ACTA: ACTA Video
Watch a lulzy video on ACTA: Lulzy Video

Say NO to ACTA. It is essential to spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA.

Via Tumblr

All is Cracked and Confusion, G, 4187 words

agapi42 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:45:36 GMT

Title: All is Cracked and Confusion
Characters/Pairings: Kira Nerys, Benjamin Sisko, Julian Bashir, Garak, Odo, Quark. Minor appearances by Miles O'Brien, Jadzia Dax, Shakaar Edon, Purple-Haired Unscrupulous-Trader Lady (Rionoj) and Obsidian Agent Guy (Entek).
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4187
Summary: The Obsidian Order attempt to change history using the Orb of Time. It doesn't go quite according to plan.
Notes: Written for pitry in Yuletide 2011.

Stardate 53842.3 – 2376 (17 years after)

Garak strode through the streets, heading for the docks. A new shipment of industrial replicators was due from the Federation and, while there were others perfectly capable of taking delivery, he did like to greet the officers personally. While it was arrogant to recognise the fact, and unseemly besides, the truth was that his name and the part he had played in the war were well known among the Starfleet officers. He preferred that the humiliating task of accepting Federation aid not be undertaken by a nameless Cardassian, a mere hapless victim of the Dominion and their puppet government. Maybe that would lessen the pity in their eyes.

He heard running footsteps behind him, and a small hand plucked at his pocket as a child passed him. He batted it away without looking. There was a time when he might have broken the child’s hand but now he considered that unnecessarily cruel. There were thousands of children living on the streets now, war orphans in a world where everyone was too focused on their own survival to worry about a stranger’s child. Family was all, so having no family made you nothing. The very few pre-existing orphanages had simply been overwhelmed. Cardassian society had prided itself on not needing such institutions.

A figure picked its way across the masonry-strewn square ahead. There was nothing of value left there, anything usable having been carted away for use in the rebuilding months ago. All that was left was the dust, which clung to everything, and the largest chunks of stone, immovable by non-mechanical force. The children sometimes scavenged there in the hope of finding some small item overlooked by adults or, failing that, a sheltered space to sleep, but there was no reason for such a well-dressed man to be crossing the square, looking around curiously. A conspicuously well-dressed man, with none of the exhaustion that marked Cardassians these days evident in his movements. He stopped, turning to address the child, obligingly presenting his profile. Garak’s eyes widened in recognition.

Stardate 36490.8 – 2359 (6 hours before)

“Fala’s information is good, but, even so, it’s too heavily guarded, Edon.”

“So we wait for them to bring it out to the skimmer.”

“And hope the guards don’t notice the gunfire? We won’t exactly be able to make a quick escape lugging an Orb.”

“Lupaza and I surveyed the area. The nearest landing site they’ll be able to use is a good three minutes away. That should be more than enough.”

“I take it you’re volunteering, Nerys.”

“Yes, Cantice, I am.”

Stardate 46968.6 – 2369 (10)

“Of course I’d like to help you out, Morn, but as Rule of Acquisition twenty-one states, ‘Never place friendship above profit.’ I’d have to check with my contacts first. I don’t want another load of cargo not worth the crates it’s shipped in. I’ve still got those three cases of Kanar, and it’s not like Garak throws that many parties.” Quark leaned across the bar and topped up Morn’s glass. “I don’t suppose we could agree on a trade?”

Stardate 46968.6 – 2369 (10 years)

“Of course I’d like to help you out, Morn, but -” A Boslic woman sauntered into the bar, caught Quark’s eye, and made her way down to the other end of the bar. “Excuse me.”

“I take it you had a successful trip.”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to notice me.”

“Oh, you’re still as noticeable as ever. I didn’t think you’d be here for another six hours.”

“I’m a little ahead of schedule.”

“Impatient?”

“Maybe.” She smiled slowly.

“So,” Quark pulled two glasses out from under the counter and placed them on the bar, “what’s your pleasure?”

“Mmm, Aldebaran whiskey.”

“I’ll join you in that.” He poured the drinks and lifted his glass. “To business.”

Stardate 46968.6 – 2369 (10 years after)

“So,” Quark pulled two glasses out from under the counter and placed them on the bar, “what’s your pleasure?”

“Mmm.” Rionoj considered. “Aldebaran whiskey. No, a Stardrifter.”

“An excellent choice.” He poured two measures of the green spirit and lifted his glass. “To business.”

“To business,” she echoed. She leaned forward. “Cargo Bay Nine.”

“I’ll meet you there after I close the bar. One hundred hours?”

Stardate 48585.0 – 2371 (12 years after)

“Ah, but Preloc is indeed aware of this and in fact uses it in his work, as can plainly be seen in...Garak, is something happening on the Promenade?”

Garak’s attention snapped back to him.

“Nothing of import, Doctor. You were saying?”

“I was saying that Meditations on a Crimson Shadow is clearly influenced by -”

Garak stared past him. Julian Bashir twisted round in his seat and saw nothing but the usual bustle of inhabitants and visitors on their way somewhere else.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, maybe we could continue this later. I have a delivery of silk due from Kraus Four.”

“Of course,” Bashir said. He watched Garak walk out and stared into the crowds, searching for anything unusual.

Stardate 50618.2 – 2373 (14 years after)

Bashir stepped out of the infirmary. “You are the Sisko.”

“You are not linear,” the Kira prophet said, standing in Ops.

“What do you mean?”

Garak stood beside Bashir. “What was is no longer lost.”

“What is to come is no longer hidden.”

“The consequences are known.”

“The game is played.”

“Your existence is disrupted.”

Sisko opened his eyes in Ops.

“Dax, run a scan for temporal anomalies. Major, search the records.”

Stardate 48620.3 – 2371 (echo)

“Someone should do a study.”

“A study?”

“To try and figure out why some people can't bring themselves to trust anyone, even if it's in their own best interest.”

“Why is it no one ever believes me, even when I'm telling the truth?”

“Have you ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?”

Stardate 48585.9 – 2371 (12 years after)

Approaching Garak’s shop at the close of business, Bashir was just close enough to catch a glimpse of grey before the figure disappeared into the shadows on the Promenade.

“I didn’t know there were any other Cardassians aboard the station. A friend?”

“Just an old associate of mine.”

“What's his name?”

“Elim.”

“Very funny, Garak.”

“I fail to see what you find amusing, Doctor.”

“If you don't want to tell me, don't tell me. I'm sure Constable Odo will be able to obtain his name should any trouble arise.”

“My dear Doctor, flattered as I am by your conviction of my singular nature, I really must point out that Elim is a common Cardassian name. Why is it no-one believes me, even when I'm telling the truth?”

“Have you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?”

“No. Do tell me over dinner.”

Stardate 46969.6 – 2369 (10 years after)

Reviewing the list of docked ships and their passenger manifests, Odo discovered an oddity. The system was set to flag up any known associates of Quark’s, previous convictees, and general undesirables upon their entry of the station. The Boslic freighter captain Rionoj, fulfilling all those criteria, had been flagged in such a manner upon her ship docking at twelve hundred hours. And again, when they docked at eighteen hundred hours. There was no record of the ship leaving the station in between, and both times they submitted a request for the station’s maintenance crew to adjust their antimatter converter.

Odo opened his security recordings of Quark’s bar. He was twenty minutes in before Rionoj appeared. No, nineteen. The timestamp was quite definite about that. Odo rewound and watched Quark and Morn negotiate. There was a jump on the tape.

“Of course I’d like to help you out, Morn –” Quark repeated, then moved away from Morn as Rionoj walked in. A minute later – the same minute – the scene played out again, with the same customers taking a slightly different route through the room and Rionoj ordering a Stardrifter.

“Computer, time.”

“The time is twenty-one forty-one hours.”

Three hours before Quark and Rionoj’s planned meeting. Time enough.

“Odo to Ops.”

Stardate 50618.2 – 2373 (14 years after)

“Benjamin, I’m picking up unusual levels of chroniton radiation.”

“Major?”

Kira frowned. “Well, to narrow it down, there’s a record of a temporal disturbance four years ago that I don’t remember at all. Minor timeline alterations around stardate 46968.6. Do you...”

Sisko shook his head.

Dax paused. “No.”

“And there was an odd sensor reading a few days ago, here.” Kira pointed to the screen. Sisko leaned in to look, then moved to the side to allow Dax to look. “I checked, and this seems to have been reoccurring every year. Just a few minutes each time, except for two years ago.”

Stardate 50629.6 – 2373 (14 years after)

“What’s this?” Kira said, looking down at the PADD Sisko slid across the replimat table to her.

“Zocal’s sixth prophecy. “ Sisko took a sip of raktajino. “I tried to send it to you, but I’ve no idea where it ended up.”

Kira set her mug down. “Zocal only wrote five prophecies.”

Sisko quirked an eyebrow. “I know. This is the sixth.”

“‘In tears shall the Prophet’s tear be taken and in tears shall it be used. The order shall end, till the artists of the wheel in the sky begin again and ensure the order shall end.’” She looked up. “The Orb of Time? You think this is what’s happening?”

“It certainly fits. Keep reading.”

Stardate 48587.3 – 2371 (12 57 18 7 years after after after before/now)

“Docking port four is clear for approach.”

“Thank you, Major. Dalsaur out.”

“At last!” Bashir enthused. “I’ve been waiting for these supplies for days. This formula has shown...”

Sisko’s hearing faded and the room swam in front of him.

“...it’s really quite remarkable!”

“Maybe you should get down there then, Doctor,” Kira said, straight-faced. “You don’t want them getting lost on their way to the infirmary, do you? After all this...”

“...Commander?”

Bashir’s face creased with concern, and kept on creasing, his hair greying. Dax was suddenly shorter next to him, her face rounder and younger, then different again, wearing the familiar body of Curzon. Odo was a sickening blur. Sisko tore his gaze away. Kira’s hair was long and her face was pale. She crumpled to the ground, and he shut his eyes.

He opened them a second later to find the world in focus. Bashir’s hair was dark, Dax was Jadzia and Odo was humanoid. Kira was still lying pale on the floor.

Stardate 36491.6 – 2359 (now)

Entek waited till the Bajorans had dispatched the guards and stepped out into the open to collect their prize. Then he nodded. The terrorists were dead before they hit the ground. All except one.

They made their way over to the bodies. Glin and Hassak lifted the Orb while he knelt down beside her. She was obviously trying to struggle, but the more the subject fought the paralytic, the more it took hold.

“Hello, Selita. I just wanted to thank you personally. This is a great day for Cardassia, and we couldn’t have done it without you.” Her eyes widened. “Yes, you fed them the information, and it all went perfectly. I just hope that the next time we meet, you are more pleased to see me.”

Cantice’s eyes closed as the soporific effects of the drug finally took hold.

Entek stood. “Take her. Leave the rest, there isn’t time.”

Stardate 48587.5 – 2371 (12 years after/2 hours after)

Bashir met Sisko as he entered the infirmary. “The Chief and I have managed to set up a chroniton-neutral semi-stasis field, and the Major seems to have stabilised, but the field is degrading at a rate of zero point eight per cent.”

“Chroniton-neutral?”

“Yes. I think you better read this.”

When he had finished, Sisko looked up. “Can you do anything about the degradation?”

“Nature abhors a vacuum, Commander. The only real solution here is to go to the root of the problem.”

“I need to talk to her.”

Bashir nodded. “She’s regained consciousness.”

Sisko made his way through. “Hello, Major. How are you feeling?”

“Surprisingly well for a dead woman.”

“Do you remember what you were doing at the time? Any idea what might have changed?”

Kira shook her head. “We carried out so many missions. Any one of them could have gone wrong.”

“There’s something I think you should read. A message from the future; it’s dated as being sent two years from now.” Tapping the console, Sisko sent it through to the screen nearest her.

“At least it’ll give me something to do.” Kira scanned the first few lines and looked up. “Zocal’s sixth prophecy? But he only made five.”

“Apparently. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be here.”

“Ah, Commander,” Garak called, as Sisko left the infirmary. “May I speak with you? Thank you,” he added, as Sisko fell in step with him. “Might I say how very sorry I was to hear of the Major’s illness?”

Sisko held his tongue till the doors closed behind him.

“What do you know about this, Garak?”

“Well, this has all been most inconvenient. My accounts are showing entirely different transactions to those I remember undertaking, and I have several finished garments which apparently were never ordered.”

“Garak.”

“Apparently, the Obsidian Order has gained control of the Bajoran Orb of Time, the key to time if you will, and are attempting to change history to the betterment of Cardassia. If true, I applaud the spirit of the idea, but I’m not sure how much credence to give my contact. If the Obsidian Order was to attempt to change history, I’d like to think they’d do a better job of it. This all seems decidedly sloppy, most unlike them.”

Sisko started for the door, and paused. “Mr Garak, please meet me in the infirmary in an hour.”

“Certainly, Commander. May I ask why?”

The door closed behind Sisko.

Stardate 48587.6 – 2371 (12 years after/3 hours after)

“Ah, Commander. Major. Doctor. Chief. Constable. May I repeat my earlier enquiry as to the purpose of this meeting?”

“Mr Garak, we need the Orb of Time.”

“A most lamentable state of affairs, Commander, but I fail to see what relevance that has to me.”

“You are going to get it for us.”

“The Orb of Time is being held by the Obsidian Order.”

“Exactly.”

“They don’t just mislay things. What good do you think I can do? What makes you think I have any friends left in the Order?”

“You were most helpful in the matter of Major Kira’s kidnapping four months ago,” Odo said.

Garak sighed. “It’s true what the Ferengi say: no good deed ever goes unpunished.”

“Zocal’s Sixth Prophecy speaks of a time of great confusion. He talks of a mirrored serpent, one of the artists on the wheel in the sky. Who else could it be?”

“Why, Major, I do believe that was almost a compliment. I’m afraid, though, that I’m not going to risk my life on the word of a Bajoran prophecy. Not to impugn your security measures, Constable.”

“I can’t say I’m keen to repeat the experience, but we could try something based on radiation. Desperate times and all that.”

“That killed you, Chief,” Bashir pointed out.

“The prophecy specifies ‘the Prophet’s tear’,” Kira added. “Orb experiences aren’t always pleasant, but they’re usually less fatal.”

“That,” Garak said, “is a point for discussion.”

“The sensors recorded the strangest thing yesterday,” Sisko began conversationally. “At twelve thirty hours, a second Cardassian was on the station. At twenty thirty hours, he disappeared. Those times don’t correspond to any ship movements, so we ran a bio scan. And you know what, Mr Garak, it turned out it was you.”

Garak smiled. “Predestination paradoxes are terribly frustrating things. Now, the Orb is currently in transit. Rather than the Order staffing a ship of their own, which they seem to be short on at the moment for some reason, the Orb is being carried on a standard military ship with Order supervisors. Now, the crew won’t be officially told this, but they’ll know. Not a time for a ship to operate at anything less than peak efficiency. When they develop unexpected engine trouble in the Bajoran system, they will, to their great dismay, be forced to dock here. Either that or blow up in space. They should be arriving in about fourteen hours time, after which I trust my part in arranging this little trip will be over.”

“Then what was that all about?” Kira exclaimed.

“I dislike being trapped. Don’t begrudge me a few minutes of the illusion of free will. Now, if there’s nothing more, I will bid you all good day, and good health, Major.”

Odo harrumphed.

“Garak,” Bashir said.

Garak nodded to them, and walked out of the room.

“It was the Orb of Time,” Kira said suddenly, and elaborated, “Once, when I was sixteen, the Shakaar planned an ambush to rescue an Orb; we didn’t know which. We had good information and it was being moved off Bajor, so it was our last chance. Edon suddenly changed his mind, insisted it was too risky. He wouldn’t let any of us go. I was so angry, I thought about going all on my own. Cantice did, and we never saw her again. He just let an Orb go, and I never understood why. That would have been around the right time.”

“So the Shakaar take the Orb from the Cardassians -” O’Brien said.

“-and the Obsidian Order take it from the Shakaar!” Bashir completed. “So much better for them if it just disappears, if not even Central Command knows they have it. So much more scope.”

“So,” Sisko said, “we have to go back in time, interact with the people of that time, and actually convince them to change their course of action. I suppose it’s too much to hope that Temporal Investigations will somehow overlook this?”

“In our defence,” Bashir said, “we will be restoring the original course of events.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be sure to mention it.”

“You need me there, Commander,” Kira said. “I know the terrain, I know the time, and I know the Shakaar. They’re more likely to trust me than you.”

“Kira, I really don’t recommend leaving the force field. You may well vanish in a matter of minutes, and you certainly won’t be in any shape to be going anywhere!”

“I don’t disagree, Major, you would be invaluable. Chief, would it be possible to create a portable version?”

O’Brien rubbed his hand across his face. “Theoretically, but this type of field is very power intensive. And the degradation we’re seeing here is against these levels of chronitons. Once you’re in the past, you’ll all be out of place, so I’d say two officers, maximum. Then using the Orb of Time to get there, flooding it with chroniton radiation...I can’t guarantee it would even survive the trip there.”

“Better quick than slow. I don’t want to fade.”

“Alright, Major. I don’t see that we have much choice. Chief, how soon can you have it ready?”

Stardate 48589.2 – 2371 (12 years after)

At twenty-five twenty-two hours, a Cardassian ship limped into docking port six. The crew insisted on carrying out their own repairs, and only those gathering the necessary materials left the ship. No one noticed a rat scurrying along the corridors, darting first into the room where the Orb was under guard, then the unmanned transporter room.

Stardate 48589.2 – 2371 (12 years after/17 hours after)

“Good luck, Major, Doctor. How’s the shield?”

“Fine, Commander. We won’t waste time.”

“I’ll take care of her, Commander. If she lets me.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor, if something goes wrong, I’ll be relying on you to save my life. Both of my lives.”

Stardate 48589.2 – 2371 (12 years after/17 hours after)

With the door shut behind him, Odo took on the more recognisable form of the station’s Chief of Security and manipulated the controls. Kira and Bashir, both in civilian clothes, materialised on the platform.

“The Orb is down this corridor. Three guards. I’ll go ahead.”

The rat darted down the corridor. Kira and Bashir followed quickly.

Stardate 36490.4 – 2359 (11 hours before)

They appeared on a darkened Bajoran mountainside. As her eyes adjusted, Kira picked out familiar features of the landscape.

“I think I dented my medkit.”

“Cardassians have very hard skulls.”

“How’s your shield, Major?”

“It seems fine, Doctor. Now, this is Kola Mountain. If we’ve arrived at the right time, I think it’s this way.” Kira led the way.

They had been moving over the mountainside for twenty minutes or so when Kira stopped. There was a soft sound, such as a last footfall from someone who had stopped as quickly as they had.

“Prophets be my guide,” Kira said clearly.

“Nerys?”

“Edon.” Kira stepped forward.

A darker shadow became a shape as he moved towards them. “You and Lupaza are back quick-”

He stopped. The moonlight glinted on his phaser. “Who are you?”

“Shakaar Edon, I am Kira Nerys, and this is my friend, Julian Bashir.”

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not sure yet.”

“A man called Lorit Akrem brought me to you. I have the heart of a sinoraptor, I am big enough to carry a phaser rifle, and I wear the earring Lupaza made for me. In the winter we tried sucking stones to stave off the hunger. And if you’re as stubborn as I remember, that won’t convince you.”

There was a pause. “Nerys. Where are you from?”

“A long way away, Edon. And -” Kira smiled “- I bring a message from the Prophets.”

Shakaar huffed a short laugh. “In that case, you better come sit down. I’m sorry there isn’t a fire; I wasn’t expecting company down here.”

Stardate 36491.6 – 2359

Entek watched as the guards carrying the Orb approached the skimmer. The terrorists’ window of opportunity was rapidly closing and they were nowhere to be seen. They were either much more accomplished masters of camouflage and subterfuge than he had given them credit for, or were simply absent. They had defied his expectations, which was mildly intriguing and very irritating. The skimmer closed its doors. He had lost both the chance to quietly obtain the Orb and the chance to destroy a terrorist cell.

Ah. There she was. One had had to be there. He had planted the instruction in her head himself, so deep she wouldn’t even have been aware of it till the time came. No doubt she had applied reasoning and ascribed motivations to her sudden compulsion to carry out this mission, even without her colleagues. The humanoid psyche was a wonderful thing, particularly those artificially constructed. The mission wouldn’t be a complete loss. He loosed a single silent shot. The skimmer took off unawares, leaving Entek to collect his agent.

Stardate 46970.0 – 2369

“Seven,” Quark offered as he and Rionoj navigated the stacked crates of Cargo Bay Nine.

“You’ll be selling them for fifteen. Ten.”

“There’s overheads, advertising, storage. I’ll be lucky to make a profit at all. Eight.”

“Nine.”

“Eight bars and four strips.” Quark shook his head. “Generosity has always been a fault of mine.”

Rionoj stopped beside a crate. “Done.”

“Is this it? Open it up then, I want to see what I’m paying for.”

She did so. It was then that an identical crate in the next row turned liquid and reformed into a humanoid shape.

“Odo!” Quark yelped, and recovered. “What good timing, I was just going to call you. Someone hid these crates on Rionoj’s ship and she didn’t know what to do.”

“Let’s go, both of you.”

“You can’t think this has anything to do with us? Odo, we’re innocent. We’ve been framed.”

“Tell it to the magistrate.”

Rionoj merely scowled.

Stardate 48585.0 – 2371

“Ah,” Bashir said, and waved his fork for emphasis, “but Preloc is indeed aware of this and in fact uses it in his work, as can plainly be seen in Meditations on a Crimson Shadow, particularly the first scene between Asha and Goris.”

“I quite disagree, Doctor. That is a purely Federation viewpoint. Preloc is a master of Cardassian literature. Cardassian literature, as you might have noticed, has little time for such melodramatic self-indulgence.”

The usual bustle of inhabitants and visitors passed by on the Promenade, entirely ignored by both of them.

Stardate 53842.3 – 2376 (rewind and press play)

“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.” Voice lowered, he added, “I should try the docks today if I were you.”

The child went in the vague direction of the docks, though Garak had no idea whether he would follow his advice or not. Hopefully it should prove immaterial.

A few more careful steps brought him to the edge of the ruined square. He made an attempt at brushing himself off – the dust was everywhere – before looking up to meet Garak’s eyes.

“Good morning, Elim.” He smiled. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

This entry was originally posted at http://agapi42.dreamwidth.org/138589.html. There are comments there.

Yuletide time!

agapi42 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:57:57 GMT

Dear Yuletide writer,

I love you for agreeing to write in one of these fandoms. If the fic you write contains any of the following, I shall be very, very happy. But these are all fandoms where I love everything and everyone, and this is all optional, so if you want to write something entirely different, please, go right ahead. I'm sure I'll be delighted anyway.

I love friendships, family relationships, gen, femslash, het and OT3s. I'm less interested in slash, but I still enjoy it. Crossovers are good, as is any rating you want to write. I love awesome characters being awesome, strong female characters, references/injokes, snark/banter and things that deal or play with the idea of communication. I love humour, and angst, and humour and angst. I love happy endings, and I love it when things are too complex to be neat. I love plot and character study and vignettes. I love fics that feel like part of canon, and I love AUs. I love all the characters in the fandoms I've requested, so no character bashing, please. I'm also not a fan of incest, mpreg, non-con and insta-marriage, because I think relationships need time to grow, no matter how many years have been spent pining. I hope this list doesn't seem too restrictive, because that's the opposite to what I'm going for. Other than that, I'm good, and please feel free to write whatever comes comfortably to you!

Gallifrey (Any)
This fandom. This fandom. *flails* That's my general level of coherence when I start thinking about how much I love these stories and these characters and their relationships, seen shippily or not, at any point in the series. I love them altogether, and I love any individual relationships you might choose to focus on. Romana/Narvin is always entirely wonderful, whether there's vicious arguments and snark or devotion and snark. Romana/Leela breaks, makes, and breaks my heart over and over again, through giggly throwing chairs through windows and fierce independence and defiance and handholding. Leela and Narvin are always excellent, particularly during series three and four, so are Narvin and Brax, and, well, I will love any and all permutations of the four main characters and their various alternate universe selves that you might choose to write, up to and including *counts*, er, OT9, I think (counting only the living). I will also flail over any and all other characters you might choose to include or focus on. 'Torvald' at the CIA? Hallan's centuries on escort duty? Darkel's various secret evil plots? The original Pandora? Arkadian's crooked trans-temporal deals? Yes, please. Snarky humour, plotty politics, twisted complex angst: anything, anyone, anyway, anywhere, anywhen.

New Tricks (Any)
This is another fandom where I just flail. I love the team together, and their wonderful crime-fighting friendships, so a team fic (with Esther) would be just great, whether they're just spending time together or working on a case, but I love all this show. If you want to focus on one or two of them, if you want to write about other characters (from their families to a supporting character from one particular episode), please do. I kind of ship Sandra/Gerry, so I'd be happy if you were that way inclined but gen would also be fantastic. Canon, pre-canon, future!fic, set next year or ten years from now. This show needs more fic and my keyword in the post is 'anything'. (Well, that, and 'love'.)

Star Trek DS9 (Kira, Odo)
I've listed them both, because they're my favourite characters and I'd like something focused on them, but I don't necessarily need them both. It's a case of and/or, and other characters are absolutely, entirely and definitely okay. My vocabulary seems worryingly limited, but really, I'll love anything, any genre, any setting, any rating. Kira in the Resistance with Lupaza or Odo at the Bajoran research centre learning the Cardassian neck trick? Kira, her faith, and her relationships with her Emissary and her Kai? Kira and Ziyal? A day in the life of the Security Chief, with lots of Quark-being-foiled? When exactly did Odo meet practically Quark's entire family (as discussed at the end of Civil Defense)? (Odo and Quark make me flail pretty much every episode.) Kira and the O'Briens? Odo and Garak? Post-series fic (though I haven't read any of the relaunch novels)? I ship Kira/Dax, Odo/Lwaxana and Odo/Kira both as ships and as awesome friendships. This are all just suggestions; please write whatever comes to you!

I hope you enjoy writing whatever! I'm certain I'll enjoy reading it. Thank you, a month in advance.

And the Internet provides!

agapi42 — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:50:34 GMT

cosmic_llin is wonderful and has made a femslashy vidlet. (Spoilers for last night's episode. If you've seen it, you should be able to guess who it's about. Hint: they were awesome.)

*is still procrastinating*

King of Bling, the Restoration Rap

agapi42 — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:47:44 GMT

I slightly regret not doing the presentation, simply because my topic of Libertines in Restoration society could have allowed for me using this.

Also, having an episode of Horrible Histories every day this past week, because it was half-term, I believe, has spoiled me rotten. I want more now. Also the DVDs.

The little tiny green dot of the UK on the Where Is It Popular map is quite sad. For the rest of the world that is. Discover and appreciate our awesome children's programs!

Now off to watch Boudicca's song. Yes, procrastinating.

A Good Man Goes To War

agapi42 — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:59:11 GMT

So that was quite fantastic.

How relieved am I that Amy's baby is Rory's? Very. 'He looks young, but he's lived for hundreds of years...this man is your father' (Oh God no) 'They call him The Last Centurion'. (YES!)

Rory, you are awesome (and rocking the Roman look again). Doctor, you are scary. (Also Rory). They were undeniably effective pre-emptive persuasion techniques. Do not touch his loved ones. Do not stand between him and his loved ones. Do not be in the near vicinity of him looking for his loved ones.

I like the cameos. Whether species or character. We are not supposed to recognise these individuals, right? The idea of a Sontaran being a nurse as a punishment makes absolute sense and I loved all his polite 'One day, I hope to destroy you!' 'I'm old, and fat, and blue!' :D Also, yay for Victorian detective interspecies lesbian romance. (MAKE THERE BE FIC!) I suspect that tongue could do marvellous things. (That was totally the implication, coming straight after 'I don't know why you put up with me?', yes? Or am I just dirty-minded? Or both?)

'I'm breaking in, not out!' River does treat prison as a hotel, and it is marvellous. As is the idea of ice-skating on the River Thames. Eleven would be all limbs and mock wounded pride. Also, I really hope we get to see the birthday with two Doctors. Until then, there should be much fanfic.

'Fight, not praise.' But really, you can't help it, can you? Yay for Gay Married Anglican Clerics. Less yay for promptly killing one of them. And there was no follow up on this. (A hell of a lot happened in forty five minutes.)

SURPRISE!DOCTOR! 'Point a gun at me if it'll help you relax.' :D

What did happen to Madame Kovarian? She goes to escape with baby Melody, and Captain Bonneville has taken over her ship (I like the cameos, even if there is no point to them). But somehow she gets far away?

AMY/RORY. There is not enough love in the universe. He was going to be cool!

We are not fools. But he's two steps ahead. Colonel Runaway. I do feel a bit sorry for him. Were those the Space Spitfires, and if so, how did they get into the 51st century or so? (It was about the 51st century the Clerics in the Angels story last series came from, wasn't it?)

I really did like Lorna. The idea of someone who met the Doctor once, just once, one of the people caught up and left behind, changed, is a powerful one. She is a one-off character, and we're meeting her twenty years or so after the adventure. She's built her life around the hope of seeing him again, which is actually terribly sad. Who might she have been otherwise? I suspect we might meet little!Lorna later.

So, these particular Gangers are not people too? I mean, not a separate, independent being? I suppose that makes it a bit better. That bit where Melody melted was horrifying, even without her being important, even without everyone out there fighting to keep her safe. One minute your child is there, the next, gone.

The monks' attack prayer is sufficiently scary. That was very foolish, Dorian. Where did the monks go anyway? Were they all killed?

Is this the first sympathetic Sontaran ever? I mean, he was still a Sontaran. He was also awesome and I am actually sad he died.

Melody Pond = River Song. I really should have got that one straight away. I mean, the reveal itself wasn't particularly surprising (although I did have a moment of suspecting she was actually his mother because it was his crib and going 'Oh no, she can't be. This is still supposed to be a family show, isn't it? BBC? But she wasn't, so phew) as people have been speculating that River is the little girl who is Amy and Rory's daughter with Special Vortex Time Lord-ness all season. Also, back before series 5, I did read someone suggesting that Amy was River's daughter, because of the Pond-River thing. Well done, someone! You were almost right. If this was Mastermind, you'd get three white pegs (Amy, River, daughter) and one black (wrong way round). Though that is a bit important.

...Amy/River was so pretty, though.

When exactly did the Doctor have time to engrave Melody/River's name on the crib in Gallifreyan?

So, what actually is the problem with River's identity? It has always been this Deep Dark Secret. 'You're going to find out very soon. And I'm sorry.' And the Doctor seems nothing less than delighted. I kissed my best friends' daughter! :D

So, next half-series, we get the fall. A skeletal hand clutching the sonic screwdriver, which blinks out. Time runs out. Somewhat offset by 'Let's Kill Hitler'. Seriously? Okay, Alex told me days ago, but it was different seeing it up on the screen. Possibly this is creating false expectations, because that's such a parodic (is that a word?) title I will expecting wacky hijinks.

This is as awesome as One's hat in said serial

agapi42 — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 23:57:26 GMT

The Reign of Terror Missing Episodes To Be Animated For DVD Release

GLEEFLAILYAY!

Smile (The Contrast Remix), G, 746 words

agapi42 — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:25:42 GMT

Title: Smile (The Contrast Remix)
Characters/Pairings: Romana/Narvin, implied Four/Romana
Rating: G
Word Count: 746
Summary: Narvin knows Romana to scowl, frown and glare. He doesn't allow himself to remember her smile.
Notes: Remix of 39. Smile and 34. Lightning/Thunder from One-Sentence Stories by janeturenne, written for Remix Madness.

Ridiculous, Narvin thought to himself, pushing past a couple strolling arm-in-arm and looking all around, not at all desperately, for a glimpse of blonde hair or Gallifreyan robes. Absolutely ridiculous. Sooner or later, the President was going to get herself assassinated, what with her penchant for placing herself in danger, and perhaps that would be all the better for Gallifrey.

---

It had taken one look at the scanner when they arrived on Unvoss to realise the coordinates had been slightly off. Narvin had immediately begun calculating the correction while making a mental note to trace who was responsible once they returned to Gallifrey.

“Oh, I think I’ll walk,” Romana announced.

“Madam President?” Narvin said, aghast.

“It looks a lovely day, and it’ll only take a few microspans. You can take the TARDIS and meet me there.” Her tone was light, but she glared at him, daring him to defy his President.

Narvin didn’t bother wondering whether the President was doing this deliberately to spite him.

“Madam President, I must strongly advise you against this. We don’t know why there was an error in the coordinates; it could be that a Free Time activist altered them and has laid a trap!”

“Or it could be that the Time Vector Coordinator made a mistake.” Romana sighed pointedly. “If it will make you feel better, Coordinator, you could always use those comprehensive sensors and scan the area.”

“Parameters, Madam?”

“Oh, use your imagination, Narvin! Weapons, explosive devices, anomalies...”

The scan didn’t reveal anything significant enough to deter Romana. Leaving the President to wander the streets of an alien planet alone was unthinkable, so Narvin pocketed the Stattenheim remote control and stepped out after her, ignoring her ferocious scowl.

Then he lost her. Unthinkable. He was almost certain it was unintentional on her part, which only made it all the more infuriating.

---

This was Leela’s job, Narvin thought. But the Crown of Unvoss had requested only Gallifreyan personnel, so Romana had regretfully left Leela behind, much to Leela’s displeasure. This should be Braxiatel’s job, but the Cardinal was engaged on other business. He certainly wouldn’t count on Braxiatel to protect him from Leela, who would no doubt want to cut out his hearts and make him eat them should he return with a President who was in anything other than perfect health.

The readout beeped, indicating the Gallifreyan biosignature matching that of the President was close. Blonde hair caught his eye, moving towards him, and he hurried forwards before he realised his mistake.

It was Romana, but not his President. She was ridiculously young, barely out of the Academy, and her blonde hair was long, falling down the back of an outlandish outfit. Narvin stepped to the side as unobtrusively as possible. The greater the distance, the smaller the chance of timeline contamination, although, in this instance, the danger should be insignificant. Romana’s entire attention seemed to be fixed upon the man next to her – the Doctor, Narvin surmised – who was gesturing expansively while somehow avoiding hitting anyone on the crowded street. Her eyes were bright, but not with the fire that burned in his President’s eyes, and she was smiling happily, if a touch indulgently, an unfamiliar expression which nevertheless suited her. As he watched, she said something to the Doctor, some witticism or observation probably, and he broke into a smile twice as wide and just as happy. He took her hand, and then they had passed Narvin.

He filtered that reading, and followed the second trace.

“Do keep up, Narvin,” Romana snapped, two microspans and a right turn later. Narvin pushed her smiling image from his mind, as he always did, and hurried back to her side.

---

Of all the admittedly few times he's seen her smile (which he doesn't think about), this is the one that leaps to the forefront of his mind as Romana smiles at him for the first time. She seems paler and thinner every day of this wretched civil war, from lack of sleep and lack of food and too much worry; there’s a bruise spreading across her cheekbone where a small piece of debris flung from an explosion hit her; she’s dripping wet, with her hair darkly plastered to her head. Yet she still seems more beautiful than all the other times put together.

She follows it with a caustic comment, because she wouldn’t be Romana otherwise, and he makes a rather weak reply, distracted by the knowledge that he wouldn’t trade her – scowls and frowns and all – for anyone, even herself.

As if his life wasn’t complicated enough.

Liberation (The Clock Stops Remix), G, 374 words

agapi42 — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:27:33 GMT

Title: Liberation (The Clock Stops Remix)
Characters/Pairings: Three, Jo
Rating: G
Word Count: 374
Summary: The Doctor's exile is rescinded.
Notes: Remix of Liberation by curuchamion, written for Remix Madness.

The Doctor is a Time Lord. Exiled and stranded, with no more power over the fourth dimension than the humans around him, perhaps, but still a Time Lord.

There is always Time.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-four.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-five.

But it is only linear time. He cannot see tomorrow, cannot see the ripples that spread from the actions of those around him or the pattern they form the future in.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-six.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-seven.

He is acutely aware of every splinter of every second of every minute that passes, lost to the now unreachable past. It’s a swinging pendulum, a shifting shadow, a steady drip of water building a stalagmite. It continually scratches against the block in his mind.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-eight.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and seventy-nine.

He’s learnt to measure time in other ways. How Liz’s hair changes, how many times Jo smiles, how his hands grow scarred and callused from all his experiments and adventures. He hadn’t chosen this life or this body, marked with a criminal brand, but he is still the Doctor and he has made it his own.

Tick.

Ninety-six million, one hundred and sixty four thousand, five hundred and eighty.

Vworp.

He snatches the dematerialisation circuit up, almost afraid it will disappear. He turns it over in his hands and his mind clears. His knowledge is there, just as it’s always been. His mind is wholly his again.

The stalagmite of linear time is dissolved and swept away. Time roars in his head, free and wonderful, an infinity of choices.

“I...I suppose you’ll be rushing off then,” Jo says, staring at the console.

“No, not straight away, Jo, of course not,” he tells her and strides around the console, every dial and button making new-old sense to him. “I’ve got to build a new forcefield generator first.”

After all, he has all the time in the worlds now.

Cold Comfort for Change (The Divergence Remix), PG, 2690 words

agapi42 — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:58:09 GMT

Title: Cold Comfort for Change (The Divergence Remix)
Characters/Pairings: Three/Delgado!Master, Two, Narvin
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2690
Summary: The story changes; the game remains the same.
Notes: Remix of Cold Comfort for Change by birdsarecalling, written for Remix Redux 9. Many thanks to janeturenne and livii for the extremely helpful betas!

By an unknown first-year student, from the archives of the University of Mars.

In temporal mechanics, there is no beginning. No single point can be declared to stand alone, in a vacuum; nothing that happens can happen without something else, many something elses, occurring beforehand, linearly speaking. And for these events themselves to occur, other myriad actions must have occurred, and so on, and so on.

If this were the approach widely taken, temporal mechanics would be an almost impossible field of study, its demands far exceeding the time available to the common humanoid, with their average lifespans of a mere century or two. However, as linear, limited lifeforms are responsible for the vast majority of space-time events – as far as can be perceived by such lifeforms – a tight focus upon a case study is usually accepted, whereupon the academic justifies a single moment, often early in the subject’s individual timeline, as the point from which to begin the analysis. The web of time and its inherent possibilities are acknowledged, but not seen to hold any particular relevance until the selected moment, and then only as far as they directly influence or are influenced by the subject. For this case study, I have selected –

---

The Doctor (as he will be known) and the Master (as he will be known) play a game.

An intricate lacework of moves (yours, yours), working together and against each other, words and ideas bouncing back and forth (they have a perfect understanding), striking out with swords and counter-plots (they know the other’s weaknesses).

---

The Master pulls a sword from the rack on the wall.

“Like that, is it?” the Doctor says and grabs his own. His eyes glint as they clash swords.

And it is.

But it is also like this.

“You must admit that participating in trial by combat will be one of the more unique cultural experiences we’ve had during these little set-pieces of yours,” the Doctor says, and his eyes glint.

Koschei takes the sword he holds out to him.

---

The Master or Koschei, a renegade or an agent of the CIA: two different games with much the same moves.

---

There was a schism on Gallifrey, ‘Untempered’ but carefully controlled, isolated, co-opted for the Ceremony of Initiation into the Academy. On the quiet orange-silver world, it was blue, red, pain-purple and loud with supernovas and smiles and sliced bread. And children, mere Time Tots who had scarcely outgrown their Röntgen blocks, were brought to look and see.

Koschei came, and knew a fearful brilliance that his equals would respect and primitives would bow to, a sharp bright blade which brought order, his will, to so many worlds. (There were no drums, not yet, not until his fourteenth life.)

The boy who would later call himself the Doctor came, and, as the myth had it, became one of those who ran away.

He ran away, took his granddaughter, left Koschei behind.

Koschei never forgave him.

The Doctor never let him.

---

This is how it goes.

The Doctor wakes up in a CIA holding cell. He hurts, but not nearly as much as he’d expected. There’s a mirror lying on the bed by his hand, which doesn’t seem to have changed: he grabs it and confirms it, still in his second body. What are they up to now?

The door opens.

“Vansell?”

“Doctor,” Vansell acknowledges, an unexpected pleasantry. “As you’ve no doubt noticed, your regeneration has been postponed. The CIA feels that your talents, such as they are, would be wasted in exile and wish to discuss alternatives.”

(“I am the Master,” the Master intones on a distant planet, unapprehended and unapproached, “and you will obey me.”)

While it goes like this.

“Parole,” Koschei tells him. “On Earth.”

“You mean exile,” this new Doctor says, throwing the softer word back in Koschei’s face, the word he’d fought for, putting himself on the line for the Doctor again. He wishes he hadn’t, because only a fool doesn’t learn from his mistakes and Koschei is no fool. “My dear fellow, you and the rest of the pompous blowhards cannot take the universe from me. It isn’t yours to take.”

They do anyway.

The Doctor doesn’t take a blind bit of notice. If only he would, if only he could understand what Koschei grew to understand, if only he would accept and they could be partners both within and without the CIA, they could be magnificent. Again.

---

Renegades were brought into the CIA more often than that organization would admit. (Not that they would admit to anything. The CIA did what needed to be done, and those who needed to know knew, and those who didn’t didn’t. Although, of course, everyone thought they knew something. The CIA would also not admit to encouraging and/or inventing some of the wilder rumours. The CIA would not admit to anything.)

Renegades were largely intelligent, creative, resourceful individuals. Their ability to think outside the Gallifreyan box of non-intervention had proved in many cases to be of great value to the CIA, once they had been persuaded to put their talents to appropriate use. They were recruited when the opportunity arose, as were all operatives.

That didn’t mean they were trusted. Not that any CIA agent worth his salt trusted anyone – loyalty wasn’t the same as trust – but officially ex-renegades were regarded with particular wariness.

- A

That Ambassador Braxiatel had been a thorn in Assistant Technician, now Agent, Narvin’s side recently was a grave understatement. The timeonic fusion device debacle – which must have been all Braxiatel’s fault – could have seen Narvin languishing as an assistant technician for centuries. It took all of Narvin’s intelligence and cunning to ensure he emerged intact; luckily, these were qualities the CIA prized. To find his new career now endangered by the antics of none other than Braxiatel’s younger brother, then, is not surprising.

There’s a crowd in the town square, but at some distance from the spectacle that’s drawn them here. The Doctor is sitting on the ground, emptying his pockets under the threat of the sharp points of a crude agricultural tool. A second primitive male is also pointing a similar tool in the Doctor’s direction, but keeps lowering it to gingerly push the Doctor’s miscellaneous junk towards a third, who is picking through it with gloved hands and chanting. The Doctor mutters, a running commentary on the inventory of his pockets most probably, as Narvin strides into the square.

“Oh, I say!” the Doctor exclaims delightedly and turns whatever fascinating object he has just located round in his hands, prompting an emphatic gesture with the repurposed agricultural implement. The Doctor reluctantly relinquishes the item and Narvin’s gaze follows it to the pile, where he recognises the object currently in the chanting man’s gloved hands quickly enough that his planned opening sentence becomes instead, “Don’t touch that, you stupid –!”

There is an explosion.

- B

Koschei’s lip curls as he looks over Narvin’s CIA-issued disguise of Raladian peasant. Koschei’s own disguise is carefully crafted, his role meticulously scripted. He doesn’t want a partner, he doesn’t trust a partner; Narvin is nothing more or less than a complicating factor in his calculations. Unfortunately, the CIA doesn’t trust Koschei either. Yet.

Koschei is willing to admit that the man has proved useful on occasion – that little trick with the Time Agent’s vortex manipulator during the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, for example (irresponsible, inefficient: that had really done the time streams a favour). Koschei always accords respect where it is due, as he wishes others would do to him (he doubts they will ever give him the equipment he asks for, and never the funding). But Narvin has no imagination, no flair. He can never understand. And in any case, there is only one man whom Koschei could ever consider a worthy partner.

Koschei’s pleased when the Lord Superintendent sees fit to grant him his own missions, complete with TARDIS.

---

Snakes

The Doctor is trapped on Earth and now the Master is too. The humans – the Brigadier and Jo – fear the Master, and what he has brought to their world, but Jo sees that the Doctor doesn’t.

“I’m rather looking forward to it,” he tells her. Jo gapes and the Brigadier shakes his head. The Doctor is alien and they don’t expect to understand. They do trust him to help protect their world, and he will, but he hopes they never guess he wouldn’t wish the Master away now he’s here.

For the first time since he was stranded on this planet, he’s faced with an equal, a history, a challenge.

The Master is many things, but he’s never boring.

Game on.

Ladders

The board is constantly changing but the moves seldom do. They chase and plot and push and pull. The Doctor picks extraordinary companions, those upon whom history turns, and Koschei has to make sure history takes the right turn. They’re usually from Earth, and if this exasperates Koschei further, so much the better. (It’s Koschei’s fault for stranding him there, parole indeed.) The Doctor could take anyone, someone less important to the web of time – he’s confident that bravery and intelligence and curiosity aren’t exclusive to the figures that populate history books – but, while they might conceivably attract Koschei’s jealousy, they wouldn’t guarantee he would come hunting.

Today, the two of them are on a war zeppelin, a thousand metres above the methane lakes of Al-Murzim VII; perhaps they are also halfway across the galaxy playing out exactly the same script. It wouldn’t surprise the Doctor. It does surprise him when Koschei breaks character – he can recite the Criminal Non-Linearity Act from memory, all the times he’s heard it – and leaves him there, to the tender mercies of the Sky Pirates. The Doctor isn’t used to being the one who does the chasing. Never mind. He escapes, finds the hypocrite in thirteenth-century England, in the company in Queen Isabelle, no less, and the game continues.

---

Check

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a heap of dust on a second-rate planet to a third-rate star. Do you?” the Doctor says.

“Do you mean to say that you are actually prepared to abandon your beloved Earth to the Axon's tender mercies?”

“Certainly! After all, we are both Time Lords.”

He thought by that, the Doctor meant...

Checkmate

“What?” Koschei says.

“I said, no, we won’t,” the Doctor repeats.

Koschei is still, frozen by ice cold certainty. He’s been thrown into the deep end unexpectedly; he’s gasping with the shock.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and pleading ignorance is hardly his style. He so rarely is, and he’ll never admit it.

“Nonsense. Of course you do. You’re wilfully blind, when it suits you, but a genius of your calibre can’t possibly be that thick.”

When it comes to the Doctor, he is woefully, wilfully blind. Denial is his last defence. On the heels of the shock comes anger, frustration, disappointment, self-recrimination.

“You couldn't have thought for one second that I would really give up my entire way of life to travel the universe as your glorified sidekick, assassinating scientists and handing out parking tickets.”

Why not, Koschei might say, you gave up our way of life before. Why not, I gave up everything for you – gave you so many chances. I’ve lost every vestige of respect our people might have had for me, and you’ve never even appreciated it. Koschei doesn’t say any of this. He’s said it all before.

“If I were willing to compromise for you, for anyone, then I would have done it centuries ago. I am not that man. I wouldn't be able to respect myself if I were. Get over it.”

The Doctor wants him to understand. Koschei thinks distantly that this is probably the appropriate junction to agree with the Doctor – well, it’s unfortunate and frustrating, but there you have it – and possibly bid him a somewhat-fond farewell until the next time. He doesn’t.

“Koschei,” the Doctor says, hideously awkward, standing in his TARDIS’s doorframe and staring at the ground. There are undoubtedly intriguing cultures of bacteria in the medieval rushes, but, as they can’t be seen with the naked eye, Koschei doesn’t think the ground merits that level of fascination. “I’ll see you around.”

No, you won’t. The voice is distant in Koschei’s mind and he doesn’t quite hear it yet. The noise of the Doctor’s TARDIS leaving him again fills the room.

Play again.

---

Crowning

“Doctor.” The Master walks around the console, approaching the Doctor. “Why don’t you come in with me?” He gestures, weapon temporarily forgotten. “We’re both Time Lords, both renegades.” Both so much more. “We could be masters of the galaxy!”

The Doctor rubs his chin. The Master knows this incarnation now, and knows this habit accompanies thought. For a moment, the future is brilliant. He presses his advantage.

“Absolute power. Power for good. Why, you could reign benevolently. You could end wars, suffering, disease. We could save the universe.”

The Doctor strokes his mouth, then drops his hand from his face. “No.” His voice might hold a tinge of regret, but the Master does not dwell on it. “Absolute power is evil.”

“Consider carefully, Doctor,” the Master says, raising his gun. “I’m offering you a half-share of the universe.”

Again.

Blocking

The Master is determined. The Master has a plan. Many plans, several backups of each other. The Master is definitely not thinking about how empty his TARDIS is, or how the Doctor’s clutter would soften the angular lines of the spartan corridor he’s striding down, or how Koschei had thought about these things, back when he actually believed the Doctor might keep a promise, once in his lives, and keep their ships nested together. You could never find anything in the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Master knows exactly where everything is. Case in point.

He finds exactly what he’s looking for, and what he’s not. He finds the photo in the study area where the Doctor’s erstwhile companion had dropped it. (Ridiculous, really, that a young human like her should have a greater appreciation of the necessity of history than the Doctor, who was only interested in flaunting his trophies.) Two boys on a pier. They have been ripped apart, and the photo mended with the clumsy materials he’d had available. He’d set it on fire once, but the pang in his hearts and that wretched, persistent hope made him blow it out.

When Koschei had cut his ties with the CIA, he’d felt alive, hurt but aware. The Master is certainly alive and completely aware, but never hurt; he is always in perfect control, of his own life, of his actions, of the Time Agency, as long as it’s useful. The thought of symbolically breaking this link, however, makes the Master feel cold, and it isn’t the still cool of control, but treacherous ice. It reminds him of watching everything slip through his fingers and fade away. He should destroy it just for that, but...

Koschei had hoped. The Master does not. The Master has, however, been spending quite some time around humans and has recently heard that the nice thing about a photograph is that it doesn’t change, even when the people in it do. Because of that, and only that, he thinks, as he replaces it beneath the secret panel in the desk drawer.

---

It happens like this.

“I always find that...violent exercise leaves me hungry, don’t you agree?” The Doctor stretches for a sandwich, not taking his eyes or his swordpoint from the Master.

“Then you better enjoy your meal, Doctor,” the Master returns, “because it might be your last.”

The Doctor relaxes. He looks almost amused. “You think so?”

And he throws the Master back his sword.

Your move.

It also happens like this.

The Master chuckles.

“I make the regulations now. And I’m going to do whatever I please.”

“Is that so?” the Doctor says, deliberately breathy.

“Absolutely.”

“Let’s see you try then,” the Doctor dares, and his eyes glint.

Your move.

And it always happens like this.

The game goes on.

It's the...BLACK SPOT! (Calm down, Fingers, my quill broke.)

agapi42 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:33:11 GMT

Hmm, I am failing at opinions.

Hugh Bonneville was great; I loved him and the Doctor together, comparing ships.

I thought the siren getting through in a single drop of water didn't make sense, because surely they all had wet feet, so Actually, forget everything I said, it's reflections, meant I was not irritated by that.

I love Eleven and Amy and Rory madly, as usual.

Mysterious eyepatch woman is mysterious. I did have a mad idea that Amy's in a virtual reality. I have no evidence for or conviction of this; it's just the first thought that popped into my head.

I missed why Eleven jumped from 'Killing us all!' to 'It's intelligent, we can reason with it, let's get caught' and why a virtual doctor would have an evil red mode, but hey, it was fun.

The two ships, dead crew thing reminded me of The Stones of Blood, but the siren turned out not to be an escaped criminal.

I did say "Oh no, have you killed Rory again?" But they hadn't, so that was good.

And then there were space pirates! (Of course, these pirates are actually quite cuddly and are not at all about to start mugging passing spaceships or raiding planets. Also, mutiny is forgotten in the wonder of space.) It was fun; I'm not picking holes.

So excited for next week, I watched the trailer about ten times (yay for still having Sky+!). I'm totally unspoilered, so it took me by surprise, and I don't actually believe my own speculation.

!!!

agapi42 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:33:11 GMT

GALLIFREY IV RELEASED.

...gah. That was my reaction. Part of me is going 'Oh, that's evil, tell us we have to wait till the 31st and then just spring it on us.' Much more is running in circles and shrieking.

Practicalities, PG, 561 words

agapi42 — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:48:47 GMT

Title: Practicalities
Characters/Pairings: Romana/Narvin
Rating: PG
Word Count: 561
Summary: Romana hates waiting. Narvin is practical.
Notes: Set shortly after Gallifrey 3.5: Panacea. Commentfic written for janeturenne in appreciation of her eloquent Romana/Narvin manifesto.

Waiting did not sit well with Romana.

Even exhausted as she was – they both were –, she was pacing, striding up to just shy of the spot at the end of the corridor where Leela and Braxiatel had disappeared then turning to head back towards where Narvin stood against the wall, one eye on the same spot and one on her, before wheeling round and starting again.

“Romana.” She looked right past him and turned to begin her circuit again. “Romana.”

She stopped, didn’t turn round. “Oh, what is it, Narvin?”

“You haven’t eaten in thirty macrospans.”

Now she turned round. “Eaten?” Her mouth twisted. “Our world lies in ruins, Narvin, or haven’t you noticed? We have a chance in a million to save it, and I send others! I should be out there, helping to save my people, instead of...waiting!”

Narvin pushed himself away from the wall, taking a step forward. “They were the ones who could do what needs to be done, and you know that. Your part will come later and you will be of no use to us or Gallifrey if you’ve starved yourself into a coma!”

She was in front of him in a heartsbeat. “Don’t you dare call me useless!”

“Eat then!” He pulled a box from his pocket and thrust it into her hand. “Leela and Braxiatel can't complete the plan alone and Gallifrey will need its President when this is over. Rations,” he added, as she looked down at it.

“Oh.” Romana wrinkled her nose distractingly. “The Smarties.”

He let her obscure reference slide. “I will give you a nine-course banquet once we’re back on Gallifrey, but this is all we have for now. Unless you’d like to move from here?”

The idea was obviously absurd. She stepped back and sat down against the wall, pulling him with her. There was silence as they handed the ration pack back and forth, blindly picking out pills as they stared at the space where Leela and Braxiatel should reappear. Five each satisfied their nutritional requirements: Romana swallowed her last and spoke as Narvin put the depleted pack back away.

“Pockets, Co-ordinator?”

“Of course. CIA robes are practical.”

“And rations.”

“I’m practical.”

Romana made a noise that could have been derision or grudging acceptance. Probably the former, but he was occupied in closing down his awareness of her body so close to his. Her breaths and his heartbeats sounded loud in the quiet.

He’d been horrified when he realised how his strong feelings for the President had changed – after all, unrequited devotion was more Braxiatel’s style – but millennia of CIA co-ordinators had done their job to the best of their ability, regardless of any impediments introduced by their various presidents, and Narvin was no different.

“Narvin?” Romana said, what must have been a few microspans later, and tore her gaze from the still empty spot to look at him.

“Yes?”

“If this works, I’ll take you up on that dinner.”

The Time Lord respiratory system was advanced, efficient, and could be consciously controlled. Nevertheless, for a moment Narvin believed himself unable to breathe.

“That would be nice,” he managed.

Romana raised an eyebrow mockingly. “I hope so.”

Sitting together under a dark patch of wall where a painting had once hung, watching for the others’ all-important return, Narvin felt her lean ever so slightly into him.

Burnt Fingers and Reprisals, PG, 1397 words

agapi42 — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:37:59 GMT

Title: Burnt Fingers and Reprisals
Characters/Pairings: Narvin, Vansell, Louis, Rigan
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1397
Summary: The CIA have fingers in every pie. Occasionally they get burnt. Narvin and his career, in the midst of a clean-up.
Notes: Written for alexwearspants for the morepolitics ficathon, from the prompt "Some kind of crossover with Unregenerate! the BFA". A summary is below the cut, to provide some context to anyone who hasn't heard it and doesn't mind being spoiled. Many thanks to janeturenne for the beta, the help and the audio summary.

In 'Unregenerate!', the CIA are running an experiment to implant TARDIS sentiences into the bodies of sentient beings of many races, thereby creating dedicated agents who can prevent, delay or influence the development of temporal technology on their homeworlds. The host bodies who have their minds overwritten as part of this experiment are theoretically volunteers, but the consciences of many of the Gallifreyans involved in the experiments - including the chief scientist, Klyst, and Louis, the Time Lord who recruits alien volunteers - are troubled by the ethics involved. Of course, the Doctor shows up in the middle of things, nudges everyone in the direction of the Good and Righteous Path (except Rigan, the token CIA spook of the Time Lord lot), and frees the test subjects, taking them home to their own times. The few successful subjects of the experiments, who have now become an entirely new hybrid species, abscond with the entire research center and vanish into the wilds of the cosmos.

***

Narvin was trying very hard not to think words like ‘disaster’ or ‘debacle’. Such words posed a great threat to his career. Unfortunately, he doubted anyone else, particularly Chief Coordinator Vansell, would make the effort.

Careers and those with the power to advance them had a very low tolerance for these situations, no matter how neatly they were covered up. A very low tolerance for anything that necessitated being covered up.

He went through the initial reports again, trying to make sense of it. The speed of the escalation...

At nine bells Gallifreyan time, Commander Rigan, co-ordinator of the project, had called for a clean-up team, citing an incursion of humans from twenty-first century Earth and a specimen breakout. The situation was ‘containable’.

But by the time the clean-up team arrived, there was no Institute, just an empty asteroid, a barren lump of rock.

He took small consolation in the fact that there were survivors to question this time. Using the defence that this wasn’t quite as bad as the demise of the Helgrim Institute was unlikely to impress Vansell.

***

“Rigan?”

Rigan opened her eyes slowly. For a moment, she didn’t recognise the concerned face above her, then she remembered. Louis had regenerated. She’d shot him, in all the confusion – damn that renegade and those interfering humans! Where the Doctor went, trouble would follow. His record had said it all. Inciting revolt, genocide, theft, kidnapping... She’d known it was a mistake keeping him around.

Everything had fallen to pieces since he arrived. Explosive decompression, escaped subjects... She’d been trying to call for reinforcements. What had happened?

She sat up abruptly, narrowly avoiding a collision as Louis hastily withdrew, moving to sit at the end of the bench by her feet.

“You shot me!”

“Fair’s fair, Rigan. You shot me first. And you haven’t lost a life over it.”

“Where are we?” she asked, although she’d got quite enough of a look around their cramped accommodations to know exactly where they were. She’d never seen them from this side, though. Never known quite how uncomfortable these were to sleep on.

“A holding cell,” Louis answered anyway. “Commander Narvin’s just been questioning me. He’ll want to see you next; that’s why I woke you. I don’t think he’s quite decided whether the paperwork to have us dispersed is worth it, so be nice.”

“What happened?” Rigan demanded. This was hardly the time to be indulging Louis’s jokes...if they were jokes. “Did the clean-up team secure the situation?”

Louis shook his head. “Hardly. Everyone was long gone by the time they got there.”

“Gone?”

“The entire Institute, and almost everyone in it. One of the sentiences, one engine, and off they went. Just you, me, your guards and a few of the medical staff stayed behind. There’s a new race out there, Rigan. TARDIS sentiences in humanoid bodies. A couple of them are even sane.”

“I could have stopped this.”

“No, Rigan. You couldn’t have. That’s why I shot you.”

“You were doing me a favour?”

“Yes. The same thing would have happened either way, and I didn’t want you to get hurt, being in the way. You would never have stood by and watched, accepted it.” He paused. “And that end wouldn’t justify your means.”

Rigan was silent for a few moments, absorbing this, before she huffed dismissively. “Klyst made a lot of bad decisions, but I didn’t expect her to throw it all away and turn renegade.”

“Klyst’s dead, Rigan. She took on a sentience. She wanted all the project data to be irretrievably lost. She, whatever she is now, is one of the sane ones.”

He was thankful for that at least. He closed his eyes as the TARDIS-Klyst’s first horrified, agonized screams echoed in his head, almost drowning out the sound of the door opening and Rigan leaving. At least Klyst’s death had meant freedom for that sentience, not violent insanity.

***

Narvin’s report was as dry as he could make it. Each stilted sentence did its best to discourage the reader from placing too much importance upon the loss of the Institute with all its records and most of its staff, one of whom just happened to be an extraordinarily brilliant scientist. Every overly formal phrase attempted to suppress the idea that a new race of time sensitives being loose in the universe– time sensitives who, it turned out, weren’t loyal to Gallifrey but were good at avoiding detection – was anything more than slightly worrying. The fact that, out of seventy-eight subjects removed the day before their death, twenty-nine individuals across the time-space continuum had reappeared the day after they should have died was a mere footnote. And no-one needed reminding that the failure of the experiment meant they were still facing their initial problem, that one day the vortex would be crammed to bursting with rash, irresponsible, reckless time-travelling species, whom they had no way to control.

It wouldn’t fool Vansell for a nano-span, but it might just get past the President.

***

“Coordinator.”

“Narvin.” Vansell looked up from his desk and waved Narvin to a chair. “Have there been any further developments?”

“Commander Rigan assures me that the situation was only allowed to develop as it did due to the direct intercession of Professor Klyst. She had, at one point, the Doctor, the humans and the Feledrin cornered, before Klyst helped them to escape and began to work against her. I’m sure you remember, Coordinator, that I was opposed to Klyst’s appointment to begin with. She is – was,” Narvin corrected himself, “a brilliant scientist, but hardly suited to –”

“Yes, Commander, I remember.”

Klyst had always seemed dangerously liberal to Narvin. One step from renegade. But when the President (in absentia) herself had been renegade, and still counted renegades close personal friends, this argument apparently counted for little. Speaking of which –

“And, of course, the arrival of the Doctor could not have been foreseen.”

Vansell’s face set almost imperceptibly. “Of course not. Has there been any success in tracing the Institute?”

“Not as yet, Coordinator.”

“Top priority, Narvin. I want them, and the Doctor, found.”

***

In theory, it should have been the work of microspans to locate the Institute, bound to one time, and the only Type 40 TT capsule still in operation. However, Narvin still had nothing more to report when Vansell, evidently returned from his meeting with President Romana, summoned him.

“Tell me, Narvin, what course of action would you recommend?”

Narvin didn’t hesitate. “The twenty-nine errors must be corrected. We should continue to search for the Institute and the Doctor. Charges should be made against him, and all those who abandoned Gallifrey, and entered to their records. I believe, however, that Rigan, Louis, and the staff who chose to return to Gallifrey acted in the best interests of Gallifrey and the CIA. They reacted appropriately to events instigated by their superior which were outside of their control, outside of all our control.”

Vansell smiled. “Well done, Narvin. An excellent answer. Unfortunately –” his demeanour changed, his smile falling “– it’s irrelevant. The Madame President was rather less than happy to hear about these experiments, approved during her absence as they were. She has decreed that there are to be no reprisals from this matter.”

Narvin gaped. “She would allow rogue time sensitives, equipped with Gallifreyan technology and accompanied by Gallifreyan scientists, to roam the galaxy freely?”

“Every effort is still to be made to find them, but only in the interests of offering help and rehabilitation.”

“And the subjects? Those returned to a point after they should have died?”

“They are nothing. Their continued lives will cause no damage to the Web of Time. No action is to be taken against them.”

“The –”

“No reprisals, Narvin. None. Not for anyone involved in any way.”

“I see,” Narvin said, and his vision of his future coalesced. There would be no supervisory assignment to a primitive backwater. He would stay on Gallifrey and continue to serve his planet and his President the best way he knew how, even – especially – if the latter seemed intent on endangering the former.

“Goodbye, Narvin. I know you’ve a lot to be getting on with.”

Vansell looked to his terminal and Narvin went to leave.

“And Narvin?”

Narvin turned back. “Yes, sir?”

“President Romana also requested that she not be given a report that insulted her intelligence again.”

Splendid chap (every time)

agapi42 — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 01:15:11 GMT

Nicholas Courtney has died.

Something. The history and his role in it, such an important part, and gone, and I'll give up now.

Thoughts to all who knew him.

ETA: I went downstairs to tell my housemate, and ended up modifying a quote from Big Finish.

Doctors may come, and Doctors may go, but the Brigadier remains eternal.

Is it March yet?

agapi42 — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:07:26 GMT

So, I listened to Big Finish's Gallifrey IV podcast..

It is adorable and awesome and makes me slightly hopeful that it will not ruin everything (in any way other than The-Only-Way-Gallifrey-Can-Go-Is-Down previously established). I am so excited for some of the casting. However, I admit I fixated on one particular bit.

Romana: "All right, Chancellor Narvin..."
Me: *squeak* OH MY GOD. *jumps out of bed and runs downstairs without putting on glasses (dangerous behaviour) to tell Angela*

CHANCELLOR NARVIN.

I very much look forward to hearing the story behind that.

Vid: Not a Virgin (New Tricks, Sandra Pullman)

agapi42 — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:30:48 GMT

Title: Not a Virgin
Fandom: New Tricks
Characters: Sandra Pullman
Length: 2.20 (song shortened)
Song and Artist: Not a Virgin by Poe
Summary: I don't think you wanna start that shit with me
Notes: Contains clips from series 1-7. Some spoilers, but probably only if you know what you're looking at. Made for halfamoon.

16MB wmv at Mediafire

Password: UCOS

Not a Virgin - Sandra Pullman from Emma on Vimeo.

Five Hundred and Twenty, Or Thereabouts, G, 1990 words

agapi42 — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:56:42 GMT

Title: Five Hundred and Twenty, Or Thereabouts
Characters/Pairings: Rani/Clyde/Luke, Sarah Jane
Rating: G
Word Count: 1990
Summary: Luke, Clyde and Rani are not a triangle, and they add up to more than a guaranteed one hundred and eighty.
Notes: Written for sleepscribbling for Yuletide. Many thanks to basicare and significantowl for helpful betas! Yes, I am aware five hours may not be enough sleep to adequately prepare me for two and a half days of walking round London. Yay, field trip. I just thought I'd get this up here before I forgot again. Like all the other things I keep forgetting.

Clyde tried drawing them once. Not their physical forms – he has notebooks filled with portraits of Luke and Rani and himself, separately and in various combinations – but them, their lives, their interlinks. It became impossibly complicated, and formed a shape best described as a squogglydon. It isn’t complicated, though. He doesn’t know what shape it would be if he just drew their relationships to each other, and didn’t bother with anyone else; the world expects a triangle.

A triangle has three straight, rigid lines, which touch only briefly, at their very outskirts. The angles in a triangle add up to one hundred and eighty, always. That isn’t them; together they are much more than that.

Acute

Luke knew that, as a genetically-engineered, alien-created genius archetype, he was never going to be normal. And that was before you factored in spending the first few years of his life chasing aliens, helping aliens, hiding aliens and having aliens round for tea in his free time.

Clyde claimed full credit for Luke turning out as well as he had.

“I could go into business,” he’d said. “Clyde Langer: the world explained. Coolness instilled; success in society guaranteed.”

“There aren’t that many teenage newborns,” Rani had pointed out. “Not much of a market.”

“First rule of business, know your market. Easy.”

Then the Kejhaff had kidnapped him so that he could instruct them on how best to blend in prior to their invasion. He’d only managed lesson one (“Licking is not an acceptable form of communication.”) before the others rescued him.

“At least you know the idea holds wide appeal,” Rani had offered, doing a very bad job of not laughing.

“My intended market is less...gooey,” Clyde had said, with as much dignity as possible while dripping with alien saliva.

It was only to be expected that said genetically-engineered, alien-created genius archetype who spent all his time investigating aliens with his mum and his two best friends would manage to fall in love with both his best friends. Apparently that wasn’t normal. The world was paired. Two eyes, two arms, two legs. Back in his first year, when he was fourteen-none, he’d read every book about being a teenager that the library had held, and, although he remembered ‘What to do when you like your friend like that’ and ‘So you think you’re gay’, nowhere did he remember anything about what to do when in love with both your best friends.

And of course he’d only come to that realisation after he moved away and went to university.

Obtuse

Clyde Langer’s life had taken quite a surprising turn when he’d met Luke Smith, aliens, and Sarah Jane Smith. He’d never imagined spending his weekend hanging out in an attic, or not being able to tell a careers advisor that he wanted to join a top secret military who dealt with aliens.

On top of everything they dealt with in the course of a perfectly ordinary day, realising he really, really liked both Luke and Rani in a not entirely platonic way shouldn’t have been that much of a shock.

He’d always thought Rani was nice looking, since that first day. She’d turned out to be a really, really great mate and it was only now that he was dimly comprehending the terrifying combination. Luke had always been, well, Luke. Lukey Boy. And then he left, and Clyde really, really missed him.

For a minute, when Luke was raving about Sanjay, when he said he was the best mate he’d ever had, Clyde believed him. It was his nightmare. Luke was brave and brilliant and far cleverer than him; he would move on to great things, had already started, and would have other friends, friends almost as clever as him, leaving Clyde Langer behind.

Then everyone laughed, because it was ridiculous, a joke. Luke and Rani and Sarah Jane were his best friends, the best friends he’d ever had, and he was much more than a useless troublemaker taking after his father; they saved the world together.

With Luke away at Oxford University, it was just him and Rani juggling school and aliens and homework. She reminded him about Great Expectations, made the prospect of being one of only two people left on the planet very slightly better than completely horrifying and helped rescue the entire population of the Earth from a warp shunt. Three days later, she was completely unwilling to back him up when he suggested telling Mr Butler, quite truthfully, that an alien ate his homework, but she did help him reconstruct it.

Adjacent

Sanjay and a group from the hall had decided to explore the concept of an all-nighter that didn’t involve study, but did involve alcohol, loud music and burgers for breakfast. They’d invited Luke, and he’d decided to try it. They’d arrived early to get in before the bouncers arrived and started asking for the I.D. he didn’t have, and had watched as the club filled up, and up. Everyone had a small world about the size of their bodies, draped in a heavy blanket of music, the beat their own, vibrating through their world.

After the dark and the weight of the club, the burger bar was stark, flat, its bright relative emptiness seeming to swallow up the queuing teenagers. Their voices sounded small and strained in the resounding silence.

“Do you want to go out sometime? For a drink?” Vicky said.

Luke paused, confused. “We are out.”

“No, er, I mean, just us. Going out.”

“Oh,” Luke said, and tried to remember if Clyde’s social lessons had ever covered this. “Well.”

There was a pause, their silence underlined by the chatter from the rest of the queue.

Vicky smiled, a wry quirk of her mouth. “Don’t worry. Just thought I’d ask.”

She sat at a different table when they got their burgers. Sanjay waved Luke to the seat opposite him.

“I was just wondering,” Sanjay began, talking between bites of his burger. “Not that you have to tell me or anything, but, if you are, I could warn the girls off in advance.”

Luke really wished Clyde was there. “Sorry?”

“Is it just Vicky or all girls?”

He’d thought of Clyde when Vicky asked him. He thought of Rani when Sanjay asked him. Clyde and Rani. Clyde and Rani.

“I don’t think I’m gay,” he said. “But I’m not interested.”

Oblique

Rani Chandra had known, and told various enquiring adults, that she wanted to be a journalist since she was still of the age when they expected to be told ‘a princess’ or ‘a pop star’. She had expected to find herself in odd situations, which she would then report on. She hadn’t expected ‘odd situations’ to involve aliens, nor for this to occur so frequently that it wasn’t actually an odd situation.

She still wrote the articles. Destined to never be published - despite and because of the subject matter - they were still good practice.

“That paragraph’s very good, Rani,” Sarah Jane said, and glanced over at her, looking over the top of her glasses. “But see here,” – she pointed at the screen – “if you start this paragraph with a summary, and then elaborate, it’s stronger.”

“You’re our Doctor Watson,” Luke said, grinning. “Documenting all our cases.”

“What do you think of this?” Clyde passed his sketchbook to Rani; the Mona Lisa glared up at her. “Suit your article?”

“It’s great, Clyde.”

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

She hadn’t expected odd situations to include being quite probably in love with her two best friends. She had no idea how to go about writing this one up.

Supplementary

“Here you go.” Sarah Jane handed a mug of tea to Luke and sat down next to him on the sofa. “Hot drink’s the best thing on a winter evening. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“I don’t think I’m gay, Mum.”

“Okay.” She took a sip.

“I mean, I like Clyde. But I like Rani too. None of the books talked about that.”

She looked up sharply. “That’s not a problem, Luke. Don’t think it is. It’s not as if everything in the books is normal, and anything not isn’t. Really, if they don’t mention bisexuality, they’re hardly likely to mention that sometimes labels don’t fit, and people are just people.”

“So I might be gay, and just like Rani?”

“Or you might be Luke.” Sarah Jane smiled. “Who likes Clyde and Rani.”

Luke nodded.

“A relationship with three people can work just as well as with two people, you know.” Sarah stared into the middle distance, her lips curving into a distant smile. “Or as badly, of course.”

“What do you think I should do, Mum? I know I’m off at university now, and Clyde and Rani...”

Luke trailed off. Sarah set her mug down and turned to face him.

“I think...I think you and Clyde and Rani have very strong bonds and, right now, you’re figuring out how you operate apart. That’s very healthy. Distance is the test of a relationship. There’s so much new, for all of you, at the moment. Everything needs to settle down, get sorted out, and then you can see how things are.”

Complementary

“That one’s a Sontaran. If you pinch your eyelid together...”

“Oh yeah, I see. That shadow’s the probic vent.”

They both stared up in the spring sky. The clouds drifted slowly, the wind barely enough to rustle the new leaves on the trees.

“Clyde?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I like Luke too. In the same way I like you.”

“Me too.”

Rani propped herself up on her elbow and looked down on Clyde. He looked back up at her.

“Really? Luke?”

“Yeah. See, people think it’s like a triangle, all straight lines and points, and really it’s like a big wibbly ball of...stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Stuff,” Clyde repeated, and gave a decisive nod that worked quite well considering he was lying down.

“Aw, I stuff you too.” Rani smiled, and leaned down to kiss him.

“Do you think it’ll work?” she continued, lying back down on the grass.

“Course we will. And your dad’ll be happy.”

“Why’s that?”

“He likes Luke. Parents can’t help it. So if you go out with Luke and me, he’ll be fifty percent happy with your choice of boyfriend, which, my amazing mathematical skills tell me, is a fifty percent rise which should, theoretically, lead to a corresponding drop in the occurrence of ‘I don’t know what you see in him’.”

Rani spoke into an imaginary microphone. “This projected drop is likely to be mirrored by a one hundred percent increase in occurrences of ‘He’s a nice boy’, seeing as Gita Chandra likes Luke just as much as Clyde.”

“Leading to a hundred and fifty percent approval swing in the Chandra household!”

Congruent

Clyde and Rani went to Oxford at half-term.

“Sarah Jane said she’d be along in a day or two,” Rani told Luke, as they wandered along the High Street. “Depending on how long the investigation takes.”

“Let’s hope it’s not that long,” Clyde said. “If our lift home doesn’t turn up, we’ll be late back. Imagine, the Headmaster’s daughter, skipping school!”

Rani raised her hand holding his and dug the elbow of that arm into his side.

“Where’re you taking us, then, Lukey Boy? Found any nice restaurants?”

Luke grinned. “If by 'nice', you mean ‘sells burgers’.”

Rani took Luke’s hand. (Two hands, a pair, one each.)

It was all perfectly ordinary. They’d been out together hundreds of times.

In the burger bar, they had a discussion about dating etiquette, going Dutch and who should pay for whom – Clyde paid for Rani, Rani paid for Luke and Luke paid for Clyde – and on the way back, Luke held Clyde’s hand.

It was all perfectly ordinary, for their given value of normal.

“I could get to like this normal,” Clyde said, and Luke and Rani squeezed his hands.

Yuletide!

agapi42 — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:03:58 GMT

My Yuletide fics are the best present I got this year.

I like my new pig socks from Hayley (as I should, I picked them out) and my orange cardigan (a colour I've never worn much of, but it suits me alright) and black jumper from Mum and Dad, and my new slippers from Mum and Dad (they keep my toes much warmer than my old falling-apart ones, although cream's going to get very grubby, very quickly, and I always feel like backless slippers are going to fall off and trip me up on the stairs, so I often kick them off instead) and yay for the customary shower gel (although it can't be that much of a limited edition, seeing as they bought me the same the Christmas before last) and yay for £150 from Mum and Dad that means I can actually afford to travel back to uni.

I feel guilty about not being terribly enthused over notecards, from Beth, and the DVD boxset of Planet Earth, from George. (I want presents! And I want to want the presents! *stamps foot* Um, no.)

But Yuletide is awesome! I think it would be even better if I had a stable Internet connection, and could read and read, and comment, and rec, and do Yuletide madness. I have read only the fic written for me, and only managed to comment on two so far. Actually, that's partly the connection, and partly because I cannot seem to squish my love into a comment box. I also feel guilty because I have FOUR fics for Yuletide and I wrote just one.

Anonymous wrote me a TRILOGY in the Gallifrey audios for Yuletide.

1) Five Times Romanadvoratrelundar Missed the Signs, and One Time She Couldn't Possibly Ignore Them
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Romana II, Four, Braxiatel, Leela, Darkel, Pandora, Narvin, K-9 Mark II
Pairings: Four/Romana, Darkel/Romana, Brax/Romana, Pandora/Romana, Narvin/Romana, Leela/Romana.
Summary: "The most powerful woman in the known universe has a tendency to attract admirers. She would probably find this a distinct annoyance—if she could ever be bothered to notice."
Word count: 6525 words

2) Another Time
Rating: Mature
Characters: Romana, Braxiatel, Leela, Narvin, K-9 Mark I, K-9 Mark II
Pairings: Romana/Narvin
Summary: "Wherein everyone takes a break from threatening Narvin to save the universe—or possibly the other way around—and it is conclusively proven that Romana's childhood nickname was absurdly ill-chosen."
Word count: 4084 words

3) A Time For Every Purpose
Rating: Explicit
Characters: Romana, Narvin, Leela, Braxiatel, K-9 Mark II, Darkel
Pairings: Romana/Narvin, Andred/Leela
Summary: "Romana knows that relationships are always complicated—but being the President of Gallifrey, she thinks, gives her a far better appreciation of that fact than most people can ever imagine."
Word count: 28,163 words in four chapters

They are fabulous. I suspect I may be quite lonely in my Romana/Narvin shipping (apart from basicare, who was the recipient of my post-reveal, pre-read text message, the gist of which was :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD, and now, apparently, Awesome Anonymous), but still. I think Awesome Anonymous makes it make sense. There are arguments, psychic explorations and hatesex, along with a surprising amount of happiness. They have everyone's voices just right, there are all the interactions I love so much (Narvin and Brax's animosity, Romana and Leela's care for each other, Leela and Narvin's snarky respect, Brax and Romana's friendship, Romana and Narvin still being deeply opposed on important issues), with a side, in the third one, of Gallifreyan politics and Darkelian scheming. They made me laugh much more than once, and I have been talking about them to everyone around me since Christmas Day. Although I should point out, prompted by another comment on the first fic, that it is intensely spoilery for series three of the audios, as are the others to a lesser degree.

And, for Yuletide Madness, someone wrote me Sabrina the Teenage Witch fic.

Sisterhood Uber Alles
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Hilda Spellman, Zelda Spellman, Salem Saberhagen
Pairings: None
Summary: "Hilda ruminates on times when she and Zelda have fought."
Word count: 694 words

It is lovely. I love them and their relationship as sisters, and this fic presents a few great glimpses of them throughout history, in wonderful Hilda voice.

So, yay for Yuletide! The amazingly awesome gifts make up about fifty times the frustrations of giving, such as the fact that my recipient was so late unlocking their Yuletide letter or the fact that they still haven't commented, and are not listed on the I'll-Be-Away post.

For Yuletide, I would like...just about anything

agapi42 — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:54:48 GMT

Dear Yuletide writer,

It's my first time doing Yuletide, so I'm hope I'm doing this right. Maybe I should say more, maybe I should say different things, maybe I'm babbling incoherently. But this is all optional, anyway, and if you want to write something entirely different, please, go right ahead. I'm sure I'll be delighted anyway.

I love friendships, family relationships, gen, femslash, het and OT3s. I'm less interested in slash, but I still enjoy it. Crossovers are good, as is any rating you want to write. I love awesome characters being awesome, strong female characters, references/injokes, snark/banter and things that deal or play with the idea of communication. I love humour, and angst, and humour and angst. I love happy endings, and I love it when things are too complex to be neat. I love plot and character study and vignettes. I love fics that feel like part of canon, and I love AUs. I love all the characters in the fandoms I've requested, so no character bashing, please. I hope this list doesn't seem too restrictive, because that's the opposite to what I'm going for. Feel free to write whatever comes comfortably to you!

New Tricks (Gerry Standing, Sandra Pullman, Brian Lane, Jack Halford)
I would adore a team fic, whether they're just spending time together or working on a case, with some Gerry/Sandra interaction, shippy or not, and/or Esther being present, being involved (like in Series 2, Episode 4, for example) and just strong friendships all around.

Um, this now seems very unhelpfully specific. I love the team together, and their wonderful friendships (they fight crime!), but I love all of this show. If you want to focus on just one or two of them, please do. If you want to write solitary introspection, go ahead! If you want to write the untold story of a particular episode's supporting character, I look forward to reading it. Canon, pre-canon, future!fic, set next year or ten years from now. This show needs more fic and my keyword in the post is 'anything'.

Gallifrey (Romana II, Leela, Narvin, Irving Braxiatel)
Anything will be wonderful. I love them and all their relationships, seen shippily or not. I have been wishing for some Romana/Narvin, and I have a massive soft spot for Leela and Narvin's snarky sort of friendship in series 3, but I'll love absolutely anything with any or all of these characters, any rating, that you might write.

Out of all my fandoms, 'anything' applies most to this request. Look, I wrote it up there! I do (somewhat guiltily) ship Romana/Narvin and think 3.3 Appropriation is incredibly so, but the same can be said for ~~2.2 Spirit~~ the entire series for Romana/Leela ;) I have another soft spot for Time Lords rolling their eyes and moaning about the President's Alien Girlfriend. Snarky humour or twisted complex angst, or something in between; Brax and Romana are intriguing, Narvin and Brax are hilarious - I love everything, everyone, and any type of fic you might write.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Hilda Spellman, Zelda Spellman)
I always enjoyed the little bits we learned about their past lives. A pre-canon historical fic with these two would be really excellent. Or just something with the wonderful family relationships they and Sabrina had on the show.

Or, you know, anything. I love Hilda and Zelda and their relationship as sisters, how they're so different and better together than apart. I'd prefer it if you could avoid life-threatening injury: a remarkable number of the stories in this fandom on ff.net are seemingly preoccupied with that theme. But otherwise, feel free!

The Addams Family (1964) (Morticia Addams, Gomez Addams)
One of my favourite aspects of this series is how loving and generous and caring Morticia and Gomez are, although they're often misunderstood or misguided. Something where they try to help, whether they do or not, would be brilliant. Any setting, any time, any other characters.
Also, if Morticia could speak French or call him 'bubeleh' at some point, provoking the usual reaction, that would also be brilliant.

These are just suggestions, and optional suggestions at that. Morticia and Gomez acting like themselves? I'll be delighted.

I hope you enjoy writing whatever! I'm certain I'll enjoy reading it. Thank you, a month in advance.

Have journal; will post

agapi42 — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:20:43 GMT

So, that was very much squee and awesome and lovely. Possibly there was a semblance of plot there, but I was focused on JO! And SARAH! And ELEVEN! And CLYDE and RANI and SANTIAGO! There were also space vultures and Sarah-from-Primeval.

Jo/Sarah. So much. So so much that I began to wonder if it was deliberate. They were ADORABLE. And they RANDOMLY HUGGED all the time and CUDDLED in the coffin. Write, fandom, write.

'507'. Seriously. That's what the fuss was all about? If I hadn't seen all the discussion, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. It struck me as obviously flippant, a number pulled out of thin air.

I will not go through and list every single line or event that made me gleeful, because I have to go to bed within the next three hours.

But that last scene made me so, so, so happy. So it was obvious, so what? I am a fan and I like fanservice. I pretty much love what this episode has done for past companions. They're alive; they're making a difference and of course they're happy. Liz is ON THE MOON (and not dead!). The Brig is back in Peru (so either that's code or something really big's going on there). Tegan (who is not dead!), Ben, Polly (who are not not in each other's lives!), Dorothy (who I think is Ace, because of the Dorothy something, but it would be equally as awesome to be Dodo, either way, not dead!) are all alive with full, important, happy lives. Harry seemed to be...not around, judging by the past tense, but I'm still subscribing to the 'he's in hiding because of incredibly sensitive information and he'll reappear when the thirty year rule or something applies' idea. I read a fic like that once. Ian and Barbara are professors, in Cambridge (at St Cedds), and they're canon, on-screen stated canon!

I don't like the whole not-aged-since-the-sixties thing. I'm pretty certain any eighty-year-old you might ask would prefer to have their thirty-year-old body. Maybe this is just me being stupid and naive and twenty, hoping for decades ahead of me full of discovery and change and growth. I'd love to time travel but I don't want to be immortal (although I am, obviously. I'd like to reach eighty. Sixty years? That's forever).

But, things change. People change. The universe moves on. If you don't move with it, you're not really a part of it.

Ian and Barbara went home. They were going to go to the pub, they were going to watch cricket, they were going to do things that 'probably' wouldn't be as exciting as travelling with the Doctor. They were going to be married. They were going to find jobs and cook dinner and tell their children stories. They were going to argue and worry and grieve. They were going to adventure, to stargaze at night and take their grandchildren to the park in the day. They were going to be completely ordinary, utterly extraordinary, the best of humanity.

Aging is human. Don't take that away from them.

brb, ficcing.

On the subject of fic, Angela and I spent most of the day discussing a Leverage 16th century AU. See, in our Literary London module, we've started studying the criminal underworld of the late 1500s/early 1600s through contemporary pamphlets such as 'The Second Part of Coney-Catching' and 'The Defence of Coney-Catching'. They're amazing. They both relate lots of fascinating little tales.

'The Second Part''s stories are all about crimes these thieves, vagabonds, coney-catchers have carried out. My favourite was the one where this 'hooker' is trying to hook things out of this room through an open window and getting really frustrated because, unbeknownst to him, the porter is standing in the room, simply lifting anything that gets caught off the hook.

'The Defence' was amusing generally. It was purportedly written by a coney-catcher who was really annoyed that R.G was publishing pamphlets like 'The Second Part' (and the first part, and more besides) and telling all their secrets because everyone he tried to con just went 'I've read the book! You can't fool me.' It related tales of legally fine, morally rotten ripping off, complaining that their acts were much greater than anything he or his ilk did. Ready made 16th century Leverage plots!

We decided that Nate would probably be a 'upright-man' (previously a servant, skilled), Sophie a 'bawdy-basket' (comes to a house with stuff to sell and nicks other stuff), Eliot a 'ruffler' (a returned soldier too proud to beg) and Parker a Dell (young woman...curse non-specific definitions), so skilled in the Blacke Art (lockpicking) that she always plays the part of the Charme (lockpicker).

Hardison gave us some trouble. Four hours after the Literary London seminar ended, and two minutes after I had seen her last, Angela rushed out of her class to tell me (still waiting to go in to my lecture) that he could be a forger. It was okay, because the teacher wasn't there yet ;).

Last week, it was the Leverage team attempt to steal from Brax's collection. This week, 16th century AU. We do enjoy the module and pay attention during the seminar, honest.