#dwfemslashweek

For every 💬 I get in my inbox, I’ll post a quote from my own writing that I’m proud of!

(( A little while back I joined in with @doctorwhofemslash for #dwfemslashweek, and of my contributions this was, I think, the best received. I’m really proud of basically making it an “author episode,” weaving in turns of phrase from the writer’s literary canon the way that “Who” tends to do with Shakespeare and Agatha Christie and Dickens.

And of course, I was glad to fill in some blanks on a ship that more or less played out entirely offscreen, particularly as that underserved Who’s wlw fandom. ))

Chawton, Hampshire, England.February 1817.

“You should have seen the look on your face, though!” Clara exulted with an utterly unrepentant grin.

“Honestly,” Jane tutted, delicately mending a seam, the needle flourishing in and out of the fabric, “who would think to throw an egg in jest! Such a waste!”

“Oohoo, you can talk,” Clara teased delightedly, “leaving bags of flour atop half-open doors!”

Jane smirked a bit at the memory. “And between us we could bake a cake or make a hearty breakfast with the ingredients expended on ‘pranks.’“

“Worth it,” Clara insisted, brown eyes dancing with glee. “Totally worth it. Feeding the sense of humor is easily as important as feeding the stomach, ask anyone.”

Jane Austen arched an eyebrow up at Clara Oswald, and instead of replying simply commanded, “Stand up and let me look at you.”

And so Clara did, the dress she wore rippling down around her feet as she turned this way and that for Jane’s observation. “Oh, look at it flow!”

“I must say,” Jane decided, with a nod, holding her wrist in one hand and flexing her fingers, “that while I have sometimes enjoyed the work of a seamstress, I have never had such a muse as yourself. You positively glow in the fashions of the day, such a royal air!”

“Oh, now,” Clara tsked. “Credit where credit’s due. I like to be a fashion plate, it’s true, but this is a work of art. Look, this dress just begs to be moved in. This is a dress for a dance!”

With that, she swept her hand out to the seated Jane, and grinned brightly at her. “C’mon. Up you pop. Dance with me!”

Jane blinked, eyes wide, her cheeks coloring like one of her sister Cassandra’s drawings. “What on Earth–?”

“You can’t deny what this dress was meant for!” Clara insisted, and beckoned with her fingers.

Smiling wryly, tolerantly, and a bit shyly, Jane slipped her hand into Clara’s, and stood. And then they swayed, there in that little cottage room, turning together. And in that moment, arms around waists and fingers interwoven, there hung a kind of wonder.

As they danced, there with nothing but the music of their own breathing and the swish of the dresses, no rhythm but their own footbeats, Jane had a curious look upon her face, and Clara could only beam the brighter.

“It is… funny,” Jane murmured, after a moment or two. “I have written– ‘To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards–’” but she cut herself off, and shook her head– and then stumbled with a startled cry. Clara managed to catch her in time, and helped lower her back to her seat, staring at her in worry and panic.

“Are you– are you all right? Jane?” Clara searched Jane’s face, crouching low before her.

Jane shook her head dismissively, though one of her hands fell to her knee. “It is– it is a trifle. My rheumatism flaring up. It makes my joints ache so.”

“Yes, of course,” Clara nodded, her expression guarded, carefully illegible, though agony danced behind her luminous eyes. “Your… rheumatism. I’m sorry for… exacerbating it.”

Jane smiled faintly. “Oh, don’t dare blame yourself, dear Clara. If anything, you cause me to feel more well than I have in a year. And, if I can confess… more well than I have in far longer than that.”

Clara’s eyebrows arched gently. “Oh?”

Jane quested inwardly for a moment, trying to find the words– not an unfamiliar feeling for her, especially these days, even writing was a struggle for her now. “I have not had the loneliest of lives. I love my family dearly, and passing time with them has been a boon. But I have been refused a relationship of affection because it was not advantageous… and I have turned away proposals of marriage that were bereft of affection, though they might have proven advantageous indeed. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection. And yet– and yet–  I find there is no charm equal to the tenderness of your heart.”

Clara’s smile wobbled, her eyes soft, her fingers resting gently on Jane’s shoulder, then touching Jane’s cheek. “Jane. You– we– I– God, my heart is leaping in my chest, it’s actually leaping, I didn’t expect– is this what it’s like to have two hearts?”

Clutching at the skirts of her dress, kneading them in anxious hands, Jane shook her head. “I am sorry if– if I’ve caught you off your guard. If I have overstepped my bounds. If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

Clara gazed at her with all the tenderness Jane had just praised. “Then don’t talk about it.”

And she leaned in and kissed Jane Austen with a sweetness and a warmth.

Jane made a noise against Clara’s mouth, a muffled cry of surprise and incredulity and– agonized awareness that such joy could not possibly be meant to last– and then she took Clara’s face in both of her hands and kissed her beyond all first impressions.

Clara gasped softly as she settled back a moment later, eyes doe-wide. “Oh my God.”

Jane hesitated, looking stricken, panicked for a moment. “Was it– was it not good?”

“It was phenomenal,” Clara shook her head, breathless, and then grinned lopsidedly. “Ehn’t half funny, though, The Doctor said you weren’t that good of a kisser.”

Jane’s eyes widened and then she smirked. “Such cheek, Doctor! Well, as I have many times in my life, I shall take a certain pride in proving a man wrong.”

Prompt: Rain

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London is known as a city of  frequent and heavy rain showers, something that Jenny and Vastra were all too familiar with.

Once, it started to rain when they were walking home from running an important errand. Jenny was about to run the rest of the way home, but was abruptly pulled into a surprising yet sweet kiss by Vastra.

After they separated, Jenny was confused and asked, “W-Whatever in the world was that for ma’am?”

“Must there always be a special reason for you apes to kiss,”sneered Vastra whose veil had been lifted off her face. She was smiling as she admired how the wet, glistening raindrops seemed to accentuate Jenny’s beauty. “I’ve read in books that sharing a kiss in the rain is one of the most romantic gestures among your kind.”

“What kind of books have you been reading, ma’am? You certainly can’t be talking about those romance novels that I know you despise so much,”teased Jenny who laughed when Vastra turned a darker shade of green. Then suddenly remembering where they were, Jenny looked around and said, “We should probably get inside before people see us like this.”

It was now Vastra’s turn to laugh as she held Jenny even closer to her body. “I don’t care, let them see! For nothing has ever felt so right to me.”

To the rest of the world, they might have looked like a pair of lovestruck idiots messing around in the rain, but none of that mattered as they both leaned in for another kiss. Just before their lips could touch, however, Jenny sneezed....right in front of Vastra’s face. That was definitely one heck of a mood breaker!

“Oh great, now I have a cold,”grumbled Jenny, punching Vastra on the arm. “All because you wanted to dilly-dally out here in the pouring rain!”

So to rectify that, Vastra swiftly swept Jenny off her feet before carrying her over all the mud and water until they finally reached home.

Prompt: Chill

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Vastra intently observed as Jenny prepared herself a bowl of supposedly ‘delicious’ sherbet fancies frozen dessert.

“Jenny, may I ask what is it about these sherbet fancies that you find so appealing?” Inquired Vastra with genuine interest, but still coming off as somewhat rude.

Jenny rolled her eyes, being already accustomed to the Silurian’s snarky comments about her human habits.

“Why don’t you just try it and see for yourself, ma’am,”suggested Jenny, offering Vastra a spoonful of sherbet fancies.

That was not what Vastra had expected to happen. “Wait...you actually want me, a Silurian with refined tastes,  to try eating that?”

The Silurian eyed the strange gooey dessert with suspicion at first, but her curiosity eventually got the better of her, prompting her to accept the sample of sherbet fancies.

It was a decision that she would later come to regret.

An hour after she consumed the sherbet fancies, Vastra then found herself confined to her bed as uncontrollable shivers racked her entire body, and every part of her from the inside out felt completely frozen.  Not even being buried in a cocoon of blankets nor the crackling fire did much to help her case. Meanwhile, Jenny was busy downstairs with brewing  a pot of tea for Vastra, and feeling as if it was her fault that this happened.

“Jenny! Look at what you’ve done to me, Jenny!” The Silurian’s moans of misery were loud enough to resonate throughout the entire house. “This is all your fault!”

“I demand you to cease your insufferable screeching, you pathetic reptile!” Yelled Strax, being his usual gruff and Sontaran self.

Jenny shot Strax a stern glare as she rushed past him, saying, “Shut it, Strax, and get back to work!”

With a tray of piping hot tea in hand, Jenny hurried up the stairs to their bedroom, where she spent the rest of the day cuddling with Vastra and taking care of her as an apology for feeding her sherbet fancies.

Impossible Wolf -- A Rose/Clara Fanmix

Prompt: Wine

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Jenny walked out of Vastra’s study carrying an empty tray and making sure to close the door behind her. She was halfway down the hall when an ungodly shriek pierced the air, sounding like it came from Vastra’s study.

“Jenny!”

The tray that Jenny held fell to the floor with a clang as she raced towards the source of the commotion.

“Oi, are you alright, ma’am?” asked Jenny when she burst into Vastra’s study. “What happened?”

The scene that she came upon was equal parts tragedy and comedy. Vastra appeared to be choking on her drink from the way she had her hand pressed against her chest, along with a flood of red liquid streaming from her mouth and down her neck. The Silurian was coughing and spluttering most profusely, as the burning in her throat continued to spread like wildfire.

“This is what happened....for some unknown reason.... you served me fermented red wine instead of pig’s blood,”explained Vastra in between fits of coughing, and hissing as the accursed liquid dripped onto her clothes “I should have known that something was off, but I was too distracted by my work.”

Jenny knew that she should be concerned about this, but she simply couldn’t help herself from breaking out into laughter despite the situation. Vastra, in her current state of utter disarray and with wine dripping from her face, made such a novel sight to behold! The Silurian herself, however, saw nothing that was remotely funny about it.

“This is hardly a laughing matter, Miss Flint! My life was in grave danger and I almost died,” exclaimed Vastra rather melodramatically as she glared at Jenny.

“I’m so, so sorry, ma’am. I-I’ll stop…” gasped Jenny who was completely red in the face by this point. Once she was able to stop laughing, Jenny then approached Vastra, cupping her face with her hands and began to kiss away the wine. “Now, let’s go get you cleaned up first and then I’ll bring you a new glass of blood. Does that sound good?”

Vastra couldn’t bring herself to stay mad at Jenny for long, so she nodded her consent before following Jenny out of the room.

London, 2007.

“Remind me,” Kathy grunted, shoving aside the damaged chain-link as she pushed her way through after her friend, “one of these days, to ask you why you love these places so much.”

“All part of my mystery,” Sally grinned unrepentantly back at her, and dug her torch out of her pocket, flickering the light here and there as she entered the tunnel.

As the spot of illumination danced across the wall, it spelled out the sign, faded, dusty, painted on the wall: BRITISH MUSEUM.

They stood on train tracks-- a disused Tube station decades and decades out of service.

“Strewth,” Kathy murmured, tugging her own torch out of her pocket and sweeping the light down by her feet so she didn’t trip. “I think I remember seeing this place on telly, but I thought it was made up, like alligators in the sewers of New York, or that dingo that ate that lady’s baby.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that dingo story was true,” Sally glanced over at Kathy. “And so’s this. But if it helps, I read somewhere it’s supposed to be haunted by some pharaoh’s daughter from over in the actual museum nearby.”

“I think you’re solving the wrong problem there, Sal,” Kathy muttered, suppressing a shiver as she hugged her brown leather jacket to herself.

Golden-blonde Sally grinned at her, and set her torch on the ground to provide illumination down low. “Hold your light up for me, I’m going to try and get a few snaps.”

Grasping her camera with both hands, hunching down so that her dark brown trench coat spilled around her boots, Sally took a few shots, feeling the ache of the place seep into her, the sense of loneliness and abandonment, the existential angst--

--it made her feel so alive.

The dark-haired Kathy gnawed her lip, though, and glanced around as she held the light steady. “This is all a bit daft, Sal. No offense. I just... I thought I heard something back there. Feel something watching us.”

“Nothing’s watching us, no-one’s here,” Sally promised, rising to stand, about the same height as her friend, lowering her camera so it dangled from the strap on her neck. “London barely remembers this place exists. They barely use it for storage anymore, they even took out the old platform.”

“I dunno,” Kathy mumbled, flipping open her mobile and squinting at it. “I’ve got no signal down here, if we’re stuck we’re stuck. This place keeps giving me-- what did they used to say on Scooby Doo-- ‘jinkies?’“

“You’re using that reference wrong,” Sally shook her head, and took Kathy’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

Kathy rolled her eyes, shining the light up between them, between their faces. “Well, I dunno, Larry was always the one who watched that rubbish.”

“It’s okay,” Sally grinned a lopsided grin, and ducked in, kissing Kathy softly. “We’re all gifted in different areas. You’re gifted in talking me down when I get too much in my own head, climbing fences, and lying to boys about your age.”

Kathy grinned softly, and then kissed Sally back, rolling her eyes. “Niche talents, yeah, but it’s something. Quick favor, though, can we talk about how awesome I am... when we’re above ground, and in daylight?”

Sally snorted, and booped Kathy on the nose with a fingertip. “Fine. But you’re getting the coffees.”

“That’ll work,” Kathy agreed, and they turned to walk back up to the surface, hand in hand, Kathy leading the way with her torch.

Sally’s torch lay forgotten, still glowing, on the floor of the tunnel, and as the two women returned to the surface, the torch rolled a bit to the side and the light caught a stone foot standing there on track level.

A stone foot attached to a statue.

A statue of an angel, staring grimly, stonily at the way that Sparrow and Nightingale had departed. A statue that would have not looked out of place in The British Museum proper, but seemed all too alien here in the Underground.

“I can’t do this.”

Clara had in no way been interested in pushing Rose to come out to her mother. There were a lot of years of forced heteronormativity Rose was trying to unlearn, and coming out was hard – especially at almost twenty-five when Jackie was sure to say, “But you’ve only ever dated men.”

So Clara hadn’t pushed, letting Rose take it at her own speed. And when she had finally decided it was time to tell Jackie, Clara had supported that.

Of course, now Rose was panicking.

“Hey, hey.” Clara carefully took her face between her hands, kissing her gently. “It’s going to be okay. You can do this.” Rose looked entirely doubtful. “Do you want me to leave? Would that make it easier?”

“No!” Rose burst out. “Please don’t leave.” She wouldn’t do it if Clara wasn’t there.

“Okay, okay,” Clara said gently. “Come on, let’s go.”

Jackie was aware that Rose was bringing a “friend” to dinner – she had met Clara a couple of times and seemed to like her. That was good. Rose hoped.

“Mom, Clara and I are dating,” Rose blurted out before Jackie could even say hello. That…hadn’t been exactly how she’d been planning on doing it, but the anxiety had gotten the best of her. Jackie just stared, blinking a few times.

“What?”

“I…Clara and I…I am dating Clara,” Rose stuttered, looking very much like she wanted to sink into the floor. This definitely wasn’t going how she had planned.

“But you…are you gay?” Jackie asked, and Clara had to resist the urge to slap her forehead. She was trying to stay out of it and just let Rose take the lead unless things went to hell.

“No, I mean…I still like men too,” Rose mumbled, shoulders hunching up. “I’m bi.”

Clara tensed, waiting for the inevitable…

“Okay,” Jackie said after a moment, and Rose wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

“I…what? Okay?”

“I mean, you’ve been lying to me for months and I’m not thrilled about that but…okay. Let’s eat.”

Rose didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The last few months had been so stressful…

Summary: Theo surprises Rose during her off period and the result is definitely going to be fueling the rumor mill amongst their students. (Fem!Ten/Rose teachers AU)

Notes: This is just 600 words of girls necking and then being cute. Also for the anon who prompted me with “Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark.” :)

Rating: light teen

AO3

Rose was reaching up to get the box of colored pencils on a shelf above her head when she heard the door to her storage cupboard swing shut. She spun around, a lecture for whatever student was sneaking up on her already on the tip of her tongue.

It died when she saw her girlfriend leaning against the closed door instead.

“Why, Doctor Smith, fancy seeing you here,” Rose said, tongue peeking out to decorate the corner of her smile.

“Got out of the science meeting early, thought I’d come see how you were spending your off period,” Theo said, lazy smile spreading over her face.

“Oh, just restocking things,” Rose said, waving her hand at the art supplies around them.

“I have a better idea.”

That was all the warning Rose got before Theo pressed her against the shelves and captured her lips. Rose barely had time to open her mouth against hers before she was moving. Theo dragged her mouth against Rose’s jawline, leaving sloppy a trail of sloppy kisses on her way to a spot on Rose’s neck.