#ask rinari

*chuckling* I suppose that's fair. I'll give you some hints. ;3 They are both still on my "these will haunt me until I finish the damn things, and I do not consider them abandoned" list. But they are also on my "being very obstinate about the next part, in particular" list, too.

When the Blurred Line Breaks

As you've noted, Helen seems inclined to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. She's certainly been vulnerable in a way she's not used to, not with Nikola, and I don't think either of them know how to navigate that very well. Emotional, snappish conversations, hard to write.

Of course, this piece was always intended to slot into canon, to take them more or less to where we find them in S1 of the actual show. Nikola's borderline antagonism, Helen's wary, exasperated tolerance that turns to something like horror when faced with what he's been up to. So they're not going to end in a good place, I'm afraid, and I think knowing that is also part of what's blocking me from writing the rest, because there's very little that's fun about the rest.

Irritable early morning, a slow, torturous, snowy drive up to the safehouse, and a fraught parting: Nikola asking Helen if she won't consider staying, because he wants her to, and imagine what they could do, just the two of them together with peace and time and a lab, and they just shared something and he can't not ask knowing he likely won't see her for goodness-knows-how-long... Helen feeling a little betrayed that he would ask that in the first place, putting his own selfish desires first, despite knowing what her work means to her... it's perhaps bittersweet, but mostly bitter, in the end. They'll need those years in the interim to reflect a little and mellow out. Helen realizing she was perhaps a little unfair to him, emotionally; Nikola making the extremely misguided decision to impress her with The Monsters and propose a project she certainly can't refuse.(Spoiler alert: she definitely will. xD)

A Fobwatch and a Sapphire-Studded Choker

So, the next chapter is, broadly speaking, a whole fuckton of worldbuilding. In particular, living conditions and the nuances of the vampire society public transportation system, and also Rose and J'aen settling into their new place. The further alienation of J'aen having to give/set "permissions" for Rose for everything. The lovely awkwardness of settling into bed and cuddling with/being cuddled by someone who is... well. Everything J'aen is to Rose. >:3

Obviously the beginning is... intense. Time is pretty dilated, and I'm not quite sure how to transition it from that almost minute-by-minute framing, with small chapter "jumps" in between, to a more measured thing that will likely be necessary for the longer time frame (of at least a few weeks) that I'd envisioned this story taking place over the course of.

J'aen actually works for the big tech company that creates and manufactures those lovely oppressive scanners. So that's gonna be a fun conflict. Rose, meanwhile, more or less left to her own devices as a stay-at-home "bondmate," makes contact with the InRiCol underground - in part because that's what she believes in, in part because that's the only way she sees any possibility of getting the fobwatch back.

Rose has a fuckton to balance, between her obvious personal mission with the fobwatch, her dealings with the InRiCol while trying to stay under the radar, not arousing J'aen's suspicions, and also negotiating the boundaries of her status as "bondmate" and what seems to be expected of her. (And, hrm, maybe she's not actually all that averse to it... But she and the Doctor don't have that kind of relationship. But she also really needs to keep up this charade to be able to get the Doctor back. And she cares about J'aen, too, this gorgeous woman who obviously adores her, and the continued distance from her bondmate for no reason Rose can honestly give her is obviously weighing on her, too...)