Here's a masterlist of all my fics on AO3 in one handy place! hope you enjoy! Fandoms covered include Midsomer Murders, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., ITV Vera, Father Brown, Doctor Who, Suicide Squad and various MCU projects.
Elementary - Aroallo!OC
Case fic following the TV series
Sera (in progress!)
Father Brown - Hercule Flambeau x OC
Plus platonic relationships with the whole gang ofc.
Deliver Us From Evil |1| The Kembleford Mysteries (in progress!)
Suicide Squad - Rick Flag x Vampire!OC
Also Rick Flag x June Moone x Vampire!OC
The Lunar Tide |1| Lost Eulogies (in progress!)
Midsomer Murders - Ben Jones x Detective!OC
Plus platonic relationships with Tom, Gavin, Cully and basically everyone else haha.
Midsomer Maiden |1| The Trials of Midsomer (370k words)
Midsomer Masquerade |2| The Trials of Midsomer (in progress!)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Superpowered!OC & Dad!Coulson
Blood of the Covenant |1| The Dark Waters Series (190k)
Water of the Womb |2| The Dark Waters Series (in progress!)
ITV Vera - Detective!OC & Joe Ashworth, Detective!OC & Vera Stanhope
Angel of the North |1| The Summer Files (310k)
Doctor Who & MCU Crossover - The Doctor x OC
Watch Us Run |1| The Ascension (in progress!)
This one will be slow updates as I'm uploading it part by part to AO3 as I edit and improve the original version I published on Wattpad from years back. So you can look me up as thedoctorcried on there if you can't wait for the rest - there's over a million words currently published haha
Captain America & Other MCU Projects - Bucky Barnes x German!OC
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Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
"You know the Hunter," the nearest Dalek to Hazel stated, swivelling to face her. "You understand her. You will predict her actions."
"I don't know," Hazel told it. "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."
"Predict! Predict! Predict!" the Dalek ordered.
"TARDIS detected in flight."
"Launch missiles. Exterminate!"
"You can't!" Hazel protested, her eyes widening. "The TARDIS hasn't got any defences. You're going to kill her!"
The Dalek looked at her. "You have predicted correctly."
***
"We've got incoming!" Jack announced, seeing the missiles on the monitor. They struck the TARDIS, but inside, they felt little more than a minor jolt. He grinned. "The extrapolator's working. We've got a fully functional forcefield. Try saying that when you're drunk."
The Hunter smiled at him from across the console. "And for my next trick." She materialised the TARDIS around Hazel, trying not to get any Daleks too. As it was, only one was in the TARDIS. "Haze, get down! Get down, Haze!"
Hazel hit the deck, and the Dalek's head and body swivelled round to look at the Hunter. "Exterminate!" She ducked, making it miss, and Jack took it out with his Defabricator.
"You did it," Hazel breathed, hugging the Hunter tightly. "Feels like I haven't seen you in years."
"I told you I'd come and get you," the Hunter reminded her.
"Never doubted it," Hazel smiled.
"I did," the Hunter admitted, pulling back to look her over. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "You?"
The Hunter blew out a breath shakily. "Been better."
"Hey, don't I get a hug?" Jack complained.
Hazel grinned. "Oh, come here!"
"I was talking to her," Jack joked, but hugged her. "Welcome home, Jules."
"Oh, I thought I'd never see you again," Hazel sighed, grinning.
Jack scoffed. "Oh, you were lucky. That was just a one shot wonder. Drained the gun of all its power supply. Now it's just a piece of junk." He tossed the Defabricator aside, and they went over to the Hunter, who was watching the smoking remains of the Dalek wistfully.
"You said they were extinct," Hazel said, putting her hand on her arm. "How comes they're still alive?"
"One minute they're the greatest threat in the universe, the next minute they vanished out of time and space," Jack added.
"They went off to fight a bigger war," the Hunter told him. "The Time War."
Jack's eyes widened. "I thought that was just a legend."
The Hunter shook her head, putting her hand over Hazel's. "I was there. The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords, with the whole of creation at stake. My people were destroyed, but they took the Daleks with them. I almost thought it was worth it. Now it turns out they died for nothing."
Hazel bit her lip. "There's thousands of them now. We could hardly stop one. What're we going to do?"
There was a long pause in which none of them said a word. Hazel and Jack were waiting for the Hunter to think of something, hoping she could save them. The Hunter was watching them with wide eyes, wondering how these two beautiful, brilliant humans were so prepared to fight a losing battle with her. Barely a year ago, Hazel had been a normal human girl, living with a man who wasn't even really her brother. Not six months ago, Jack had been a coward, a conman, a crook. And now the pair of them were stepping up to try and save the world, maybe even the universe, against a race of creatures thriving on hate and murder. It was a losing battle, but there was no one else she'd rather fight it with. If only Apollo were there to make it even better.
She took a deep breath, then grinned at them. "No good stood round here chin-wagging. Human race, you'd gossip all day. The Daleks have got the answers. Let's go and meet the neighbours."
Hazel's eyes widened as the Hunter headed for the door. "You can't go out there!"
"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
The Hunter stepped out of the TARDIS, rolling her eyes as the Dalek rays were stopped by the extrapolator forcefield. "Seriously? Is that it? Useless! Nul points." She turned around and beckoned Hazel and Jack out. "It's all right, come on out. That forcefield can hold back anything."
"Almost anything," Jack corrected, then winced at the look the Hunter shot him.
"Gee, Jack, I wonder what it was I wasn't going to tell them? Oh, wait."
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
She rolled her eyes, turning back to the Daleks. "Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek Homeworld? The Bringer of Darkness. You might've removed all your emotions but I reckon right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me? So tell me. How did you survive the Time War?"
"They survived through me." The lights came on to reveal a giant opened Dalek casing, the inner one-eyed mutant sitting as if on its throne.
"Haze, Captain, this is the Emperor of the Daleks," the Hunter introduced, her eyes widening ever so slightly.
"You destroyed us, Hunter. The Dalek race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled but alive," the Emperor stated.
"I get it," the Hunter nodded.
"Do not interrupt."
"Do not interrupt."
"Do not interrupt."
The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "I think you're forgetting something. I'm the Hunter, and if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. I've got five billion languages, and you haven't got one way of stopping me. So if anybody here's going to be shutting up, it's you!" She smirked as the Daleks backed away. "So, where were we?"
"We waited here in the dark space, damaged but rebuilding," the Emperor explained. "Centuries passed, and we quietly infiltrated the systems of Earth, harvesting the waste of humanity. The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed. They all came to us. The bodies were filtered, pulped, sifted. The seed of the human race is perverted. Only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured."
"So you created an army of Daleks out of the dead," the Hunter realised, disgusted.
"That makes them half human," Hazel pointed out.
"Those words are blasphemy!" the Emperor decreed.
"Do not blaspheme."
"Do not blaspheme."
"Do not blaspheme."
"Everything human has been purged. I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek," the Emperor stated.
The Hunter frowned. "Since when did the Daleks have a concept of blasphemy?"
"I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks!"
"Worship him."
"Worship him."
"Worship him."
"They're insane," the Hunter realised. "Hiding in silence for hundreds of years, that's enough to drive anyone mad. But it's worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh. The stink of humanity. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever. We're going."
"You may not leave my presence," the Emperor forbade.
"Toodle-oo!" the Hunter waved, then shut the door behind her, Hazel, and Jack. She leant her forehead against the door for a long moment, sighing. She looked down as a hand slipped into hers, and managed a smile, squeezing gently.
***
"Turn everything up!" the Hunter ordered as soon as she exited the TARDIS on Floor Five Hundred. "All transmitters full power, wide open. Now! Do it!"
"What does this do?" Pavale asked, even as he did as told.
"Stops the Daleks from transmatting on board," the Hunter replied. "How did you get on? Did you contact Earth?"
Pavale bit his lip. "Well, we tried to warn them, but all they did was suspend our license because we stopped the programmes."
The Hunter sighed. "And the planet's just sitting there, defenceless." She blinked, seeing a familiar blonde working at a console to up the transmitters. "Lynda, what're you still doing on board? I told you to evacuate everyone."
"She wouldn't go," Pavale muttered.
Lynda blushed. "Didn't want to leave you."
Another woman scoffed. "There weren't enough shuttles anyway, or I wouldn't be here. We've got about a hundred people stranded on Floor Zero."
Pavale blanched looking at his computer screen. "Oh my God. The Fleet is moving. They're on their way."
The Hunter sprung into action, talking as she started building something, pulling things out of the conduits to make it with. "Dalek plan. Big mistake, because what have they left me with? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, come on, it's obvious. A great big transmitter. This station. If I can change the signal, fold it back, sequence it, anyone?"
Jack's eyes widened. "You've got to be kidding."
"Give the man a medal!"
"A Delta Wave?" Jack asked.
The Hunter grinned. "A Delta Wave!"
Hazel frowned. "What's a Delta Wave?"
"A wave of Van Cassadyne energy," Jack replied. "It fries your brain. Stand in the way of a Delta Wave and your head gets barbequed."
"And this place can transmit a massive wave," the Hunter added. "Wipe out the Daleks!"
"Well, get started and do it then," Lynda encouraged.
The Hunter bit her lip. "Trouble is, wave this size, building this big, brain as clever as mine, should take about...ooh, three days? How long till the Fleet arrive?"
"Twenty two minutes," Pavale answered, blanching.
***
Jack stood up a while later after helping the Hunter to start building the basics of the Delta Wave. "We've now got a forcefield so they can't blast us out of the sky, but that doesn't stop the Daleks from physically invading."
"Do they know about the Delta Wave?" Pavale asked.
"They'll have worked it out at the same time," Jack confirmed. "So, they want to stop the Hunter. That means they've got to get to this level, Five Hundred. Now, I can concentrate the extrapolator around the top six levels, Five Hundred to Four Ninety Five. So they'll penetrate the station below that at level Four Ninety Four and fight their way up."
"Who are they fighting?" Pavale questioned, already knowing the answer.
"Us," Jack deadpanned.
Pavale sighed. "And what are we fighting with?"
"The guards had guns with bastic bullets," Jack replied. "That's enough to blow a Dalek wide open."
"There's five of us," one woman protested.
"Haze, you can help me," the Hunter requested hastily. "I need all these wires stripping bare."
The woman rolled her eyes. "Right, now there's four of us."
"Then let's move it," Jack ordered. "Into the lift. Isolate the lift controls." Pavale and his colleague ran off, leaving just Jack, Lynda, the Hunter, and Hazel.
"I just want to say, well, thanks, I suppose, and I'll do my best," Lynda said, shrugging.
"Me too," the Hunter agreed. They shook hands, and she went to the lifts.
Jack sighed, looking between them. "It's been fun, but I guess this is goodbye."
"Don't talk like that," Hazel told him. "Artie's going to do it. You just watch her."
He hugged her. "Jules, you are worth fighting for." He kissed her, making her roll her eyes. Then he moved onto the Hunter, who made an effort to smile. "Wish I'd never met you, Queenie. I was much better off as a coward." He kissed her, too. He laughed a little as he pulled back, seeing the way they were both looking at him, like they couldn't bear him to go. "See you in hell." He jogged off, knowing that if he stayed any longer, they'd persuade him not to go.
Hazel bit her lip. "He's going to be all right, isn't he?"
The Hunter sighed, watching him go. "I hope so."
***
Jack climbed up to stand on a pile of crates on Floor Zero, firing a machine gun into the air to get everyone's attention. "One last time! Any more volunteers? There's an army about to invade this station. I need every last citizen to mount a defence."
"Don't listen to him!" Rodrick shouted. "There aren't any Daleks. They disappeared thousands of years ago."
"Thanks," Jack nodded as one of the workers volunteered. "As for the rest of you, the Daleks will enter the station at Floor Four Ninety Four and as far as I can tell, they'll head up, not down. But that's not a promise. So here's a few words of advice. Keep quiet. And if you hear fighting up above, if you hear us dying, then tell me that the Daleks aren't real. Don't make a sound." He turned back to his team, jumping down off the box. "Let's go." They got into the lift.
***
"Suppose..." Hazel began, then shook her head, going back to the wires she was stripping.
"What?" the Hunter asked, making connections to build the wave.
"Nothing."
The Hunter glanced up at her. "You said suppose."
"No, I was just thinking," Hazel shrugged. "I mean, obviously you can't, but you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"
"As soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events, stuck in the timeline," the Hunter explained.
Hazel nodded, sighing. "Yeah, thought it'd be something like that."
"There's another thing the TARDIS could do," the Hunter suggested. "She could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course. We could go to Marbella in 1989."
"Yeah, but you'd never do that," Hazel pointed out.
"No, but you could ask." The Hunter smiled at Hazel's surpised expression, shaking her head. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"
"Well, I'm just too good," Hazel shrugged, grinning.
The Hunter looked up as a computer bleeped. "The Delta Wave's started building. How long does it need?" She ran over to the console, Hazel following, unable to make sense of what was on screen.
"Is that bad?" she asked, then caught sight of the Hunter's pale expression. "Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?"
"Hazel Norton, you're a genius!" the Hunter declared suddenly. "We can do it. If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline..." She pretended to think, then grinned. "Yes!" She ushered Hazel into the TARDIS and pointed to a lever. "Hold that down and keep it in position."
Hazel did so, grinning at her enthusiasm. "What's it do?"
"Cancels the buffers," the Hunter lied. "If I'm very clever - and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant - I might just save the world." She paused. "Or rip it apart."
"I'd go for the first one," Hazel said, making a face.
"Me too," the Hunter admitted, grinning. "Now, I've just got to go and power up the Game Station. Hold on!" She ran out, and stopped, the doors swinging shut behind her. She buzzed her sonic screwdriver and the engines started.
"Art, what're you doing?" Hazel called from inside. "Can I take my hand off? It's moving." There was a banging on the door. "Artie, let me out! Let me out! Artie, what've you done?" The Hunter closed her eyes briefly as the TARDIS dematerialised. At least she was safe.
***
Inside, Hazel whipped around as she heard a familiar voice, only to curse when she saw the Hunter was just a hologram. "This is Emergency Programme One. Hazel, please, listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."
"No!" Hazel cried.
"And that's okay," the Hunter smiled. "Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home."
"I won't let you!" Hazel started fiddling with the controls, to no effect.
"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. I'm flattered, really, I am. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open her. No one'll even notice her. Let her become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on, and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, just one thing." And the hologram suddenly turned so the Hunter was staring directly into Hazel's eyes, and the human girl saw something in her eyes stronger than anything she'd ever seen before. "Have a good life. Do that for me, Haze. Have a fantastic life." The hologram flickered out, and Hazel made a noise like a strangled cat.
"You can't do this to me!" she shrieked. "You can't! Take me back! Take me back!" She looked up as the engines stopped. "No!" She ran outside, only to see the Powell Estate, then ran back in. "Come on, fly! How do you fly? Come on, help me!" Eventually, she gave up and slumped against the outside of the box, tears pouring down her cheeks.
"I knew it!" Mike shouted, running up to her. "I was all the way down Clifton Parade, and I heard the engines. I thought, there's only one thing that makes a noise like that." He paused, noticing her distress. "What is it?"
She just buried her head in her arms, crying her heart out.
***
"Jules, I've called up the internal laser codes," Jack called through the comms system, making the Hunter look up from her work to the viewscreen he was on. "There should be a different number on every screen. Can you read them out to me?"
"She's not here," the Hunter told him.
Jack groaned. "Of all the times to take a leak. When she gets back, tell her to read me the codes."
"She's not coming back," the Hunter shook her head, looking away.
He frowned. "What do you mean? Where'd she go?"
"Just get on with your work," she ordered.
"You took her home, didn't you," he realised.
She nodded, meeting his eyes. "Yeah."
"The Delta Wave, is it ever going to be ready?" Jack asked.
The Dalek Emperor appeared on a second viewscreen. "Tell him the truth, Hunter. There is every possibility the Delta Wave could be complete, but no possibility of refining it. The Delta Wave must kill every living thing in its path, with no distinction between human and Dalek. All things will die by your hand."
"Queenie, the range of this transmitter covers the entire Earth," Jack warned.
"You would destroy Daleks and Humans together," the Emperor sneered. "If I am God, the creator of all things, then what does that make you, Hunter?"
She took a deep breath, steeling herself. "There are colonies out there. The Human Race would survive in some shape or form, but you're the only Daleks in existence. The whole universe is in danger if I let you live. Do you see, Jack? That's the decision I've got to make for every living thing. Die as a human, or live as a Dalek." She met his eyes. "What would you do?"
Jack hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "You sent her home. She's safe. Keep working."
"But she will exterminate you!" the Emperor exclaimed.
Jack smirked. "Never doubted her. Never will." He ended the transmission.
"Now you tell me, God of all Daleks, because there's one thing I never worked out," the Hunter admitted. "The words Bad Wolf, spread across time and space, everywhere, drawing me in. How'd you manage that?"
"I did nothing," the Emperor told her.
"Oh, come on, there's no secrets now, your worship," she goaded.
"They are not part of my design. This is the Truth of God," it stated.
The Hunter swallowed, moving her gaze to the Bad Wolf Corporation sign on the wall. What are you, Bad Wolf?
"And it's gone up market, this place," Jason was saying. "They're doing little tubs of coleslaw now." He made a face. "It's not very nice. It tastes a bit sort of clinical."
"Have you tried that new pizza place down Minto Road?" Mike suggested.
"What's it selling?" Jason asked, eyeing Hazel worriedly.
"Pizza," Mike deadpanned.
"That's nice," Jason nodded. "Do they deliver?"
"Yeah."
Jason sighed. "Oh, Haze, have something to eat, please."
She scowled, making no efforts to conceal the tear tracks on her face. "Two hundred thousand years in the future, she's dying, and there's nothing I can do."
"Well, like you said, two hundred thousand years," Jason shrugged. "It's a way off."
"But it's not," Hazel protested. "It's now. That fight is happening right now, and she's fighting for us, for the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!"
Jason shook his head. "Listen to me. God knows I have hated that woman, but right now, I love her, and do you know why? Because she did the right thing. She sent you back to me."
"But what do I do every day, Jace? What do I do?" Hazel asked. "Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips, and go to bed? Is that it?"
"It's what the rest of us do," Mike pointed out.
"But I can't!" she protested.
"Why, because you're better than us?" he raised his eyebrows.
"Right, Lynda, you are my eyes and ears," Jack stated, flashing a smile even though he knew she couldn't see him. "When the Daleks get in, you can follow it on that screen and report it to me."
"Understood," Lynda nodded.
"They'll detect you, but the door's made of Hydra Combination. It should keep them out," Jack told her.
"Should?" she echoed.
"It's the best I can do," he winced. "How long till the Fleet arrives?"
"They've accelerated," Pavale replied.
Jack bit his lip. "This is it, ladies and gentlemen. We are at war!"
***
"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Hunter," Mike tried, sitting next to Hazel near the Powell Estate.
"But how do I forget her?" Hazel asked, sniffing.
"You've got to start living your own life," he advised. "You know, a proper life, like the kind she's never had. The sort of life that you could have with me."
Hazel looked away, shaking her head, then her eyes widened as she saw 'BAD WOLF' graffitied across the tarmac of the play area. "Over here," she whispered. "It's over here as well!"
"That's been there for years," Mike told her dismissively. "It's just a phrase. It's just words."
"I thought it was a warning," Hazel continued, ignoring him as she wiped her cheeks impatiently, a smile beginning to blossom on her face. "Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down now and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and Artie. Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there."
Mike shook his head. "But if it's a message, what's it saying?"
"It's telling me I can get back," Hazel realised, starting to grin. "The least I can do is help her escape." She ran back into the TARDIS, Mike at her heels. "All the TARDIS needs to do is make a return trip. Just reverse."
"Yeah, but we still can't do it," Mike pointed out.
"Artie always said the TARDIS was telepathic. This ship is alive. She can listen," Hazel explained.
"Yeah, well, she's not listening now, is she?" Mike shrugged.
"We need to get inside," Hazel decided. "Last time I saw you, with the Slitheen, this middle bit opened and there was this light, and Artie said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open it, I can make contact. I can tell her what to do."
"Hazel," Mike said quietly.
"Hmm?" She turned to look at him, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
"If you go back, you're going to die," he said.
She bit her lip. "That's a risk I've got to take, because there's nothing left for me here."
"Nothing?" Mike checked.
"Not without her," Hazel shook her head.
Mike was silent for a minute, then nodded. "Okay, if that's what you think, let's get this thing open."
***
"Okay, activate internal lasers," Jack ordered. "Slice them up."
"Defences have gone offline," Lynda reported. "The Dalek's have overridden the lot." She winced as she heard the firing of guns, then a woman screaming out in pain as she died.
***
Mike had fastened a heavy chain to the tow hitch on his Mini, with the other end attached to the TARDIS console. He drove forwards slowly, trying to pull it open.
"Faster!" Hazel encouraged.
"Come on!" Mike growled.
"It's not moving!" Hazel called. Suddenly, the chain snapped, and she kicked the console on frustration.
***
"Advance guard have made it to Four Ninety Five," Lynda reported.
"Jack, how're we doing?" the Hunter asked.
"Four Ninety Five should be good," Jack shrugged. "I like Four Ninety Five."
The Anne Droid destroyed a few Daleks, but then its head was shot off and it deactivated.
"They're flying up the ventilation shafts," Lynda stated, then gasped. "No, wait a minute. Oh my God. Why're they doing that? They're going down." She heard screams through the comms, and turned off the sound from the bottom floor. "Floor Zero," she whispered. "They killed them all."
***
"It was never going to work, sweetheart," Jason soothed, his arm around Hazel as she wept in the jump seat. "And the Hunter knew that. She just wanted you to be safe."
"I can't give up," Hazel wept.
"Lock to door," Jason urged. "Walk away."
"I can't!" Hazel insisted. "I... I think I love her."
Jason froze. "What do you mean?"
"She took me to see Mum and Dad, back before it all went to shit," Hazel told him. "And I - I couldn't deal with it and I just broke down, and - and she could have just left me alone, but she came and comforted me and held me till I fell asleep and I just realised - she's been doing it all along, looking after me, and I never recognised it or anything, but I just love her!" She sniffed, wiping her cheeks. "I can't just leave her there to die!"
"She was saving your life!"
"Why won't you let me save hers?!" Hazel shot back.
Jason looked at her, his eyes wide. "Because she and I have an agreement that you come first." He stormed out, leaving her staring after him.
***
"Lynda!" the Hunter called. "What's happening on Earth?"
"The Fleet's descending," Lynda replied. "They're bombing whole continents. Europa, Pacifica, the New American Alliance. Australasia's just gone."
***
Mike sighed, biting his lip as Hazel came out of the TARDIS, her face tearstained. "There's got to be something else we can do."
"Maybe Jace was right," Hazel sighed, wiping a hand over her face. "Maybe we should just lock the door and walk away."
"I'm not having that," Mike decided, shaking his head. "I'm not having you just, just give up now. No way. We just need something stronger than my car. Something bigger." He turned, and his eyes widened. "Something like that!" Hazel turned to follow his gaze, and they were both confronted with a big yellow recovery truck coming round the corner.
Jason got out, handing the keys over. "Right, you've only got this until six o'clock, so get on with it."
Hazel's eyes were the size of dinner plates. "Jace, where the hell did you get that from?"
"Rodrigo," her brother replied. "He owes me a favour. Never mind why, but you were right, sweetheart. You come first, always, and I'm not letting you suffer while she gets herself killed. Now, get on with it before I change my mind." Mickey climbed up into the cabin.
***
"I've got a problem," Lynda called, sounding scared. "They've found me."
"You'll be all right, Lynda," the Hunter assured her, biting her lip. "That side of the station's reinforced against meteors."
"Hope so!" Lynda chuckled. "You know what they say about Earth workmanship." Then there was the sound of glass shattering, and she screamed just once before the line went dead. The Hunter bowed her head.
"Last man standing!" Jack shouted, from just around the corner, making the Time Lady look up sharply. "For God's sake, Queenie, finish that thing and kill them!"
"Finish that thing and kill mankind," the Emperor countered.
***
"Keep going!" Hazel shouted from inside the TARDIS as she watched the chain strain against the console.
"Put your foot down!" Jason relayed from outdoors.
"Faster!"
"Give it some more, Mikey!"
"Keep going!"
"Come on, come on!"
"Keep going!"
"Give it some more!"
The console burst open, and Hazel looked into it, golden energy streaming into her eyes.
"Haze!" Mickey shouted, but she clicked her fingers, and the TARDIS doors slammed shut in his face. She smiled as the TARDIS began to dematerialise, piloting her thousands of years into the future to save the Hunter.
***
"Queenie, you've got twenty seconds maximum!" Jack shouted. He ran out of bullets in his machine gun, and threw it aside, switching to a pistol, which was also empty.
"Exterminate!" the Dalek pursuing him stated.
He rolled his eyes. "I kind of figured that." The blast threw him back into the lift, and Captain Jack Harkness died in the knowledge that they'd at least saved Hazel.
"It's ready!" the Hunter called, before the Daleks entered from all sides. Her blood ran cold as she got no answer, realising what must have happened. "You really want to think about this, because if I activate the signal, every living creature dies."
"I am immortal," the Emperor stated.
"Do you want to put that to the test?" the Hunter snarled, narrowing her eyes.
"I want to see you become like me," the Emperor countered. "Hail the Hunter, the Great Exterminator."
"I'll do it!" she threatened.
"Then prove yourself, Hunter," the Emperor challanged. "What are you, coward or killer?"
The Hunter tensed, her mind full of the names of everyone she knew who'd died today, Jack's name right at the top of that list, urging her to do it, to kill the Daleks once and for all. But then another name came into her mind - a pure name, full of memories of happiness and laughter, and love. Hazel. The Hunter remembered the shock in her eyes when she'd threatened to kill just one Dalek, and suddenly she found herself unable to throw the final lever, despite what the Daleks had done to everything she loved. "Coward," she whispered. "Any day."
The Emperor seemed pleased. "Mankind will be harvested because of your weakness."
"And what about me?" the Hunter asked dully. "Am I becoming one of your angels?"
"You are the heathen," the Emperor informed her. "You will be exterminated."
"Maybe it's time," the Hunter sighed, kneeling and closing her eyes. She could've sworn she could hear the TARDIS' engines, but it was probably just her memories.
"Alert!" a Dalek cried, and her eyes shot open. "TARDIS materialising."
The Hunter got to her feet as the ship landed, turning to see the doors open and reveal a bright golden light. A humanoid shape was silhouetted in the doorway, and as the light dimmed, the Hunter realised who it was. "What've you done?" she cried.
"I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me," Hazel replied, her voice echoing unnaturally.
The Hunter's eyes widened. "You looked into the Time Vortex. Haze, no one's meant to see that!"
"This is the Abomination!" the Emperor declared.
"Exterminate!"
Hazel lifted a hand casually, and the beam shattered upon impact. "I am Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words; I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here."
"Hazel, you've got to stop this," the Hunter pleaded. "You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're going to burn!"
Hazel looked at her, her eyes shining with loving tears. "I want you safe. My Artemis. Protected from the false god." Her voice caught.
"You cannot hurt me," the Emperor scoffed. "I am immortal."
"You are tiny," Hazel corrected. "I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." She lowered her hand, and a nearby Dalek disintegrated slowly. "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."
The Daleks crumbled to the ground.
"I will not die!" the Emperor cried, even as he, too, disintegrated. "I cannot die!"
The Hunter watched with wide eyes as the entire spaceship turned to dust. "Haze, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go."
"How can I let go of this?" Hazel laughed - a soft, tinkling melody that sounded nothing like her usual giggle. "I bring life."
There was a loud gasp from the corridor as Jack came back to life. The Hunter glanced over, a look of consternation on her face. "But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!"
"But I can," Hazel assured her. "The sun and the moon, and the day and night." She sighed blissfully, before wincing, her face contorting in pain. "But why do they hurt?"
"The power's going to kill you and it's all my fault," the Hunter realised, covering her mouth in horror.
"I can see everything," Hazel breathed. "All that is, all that was, all that ever could be."
"That's what I see," the Hunter told her softly. "All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head," Hazel groaned, swaying slightly.
"Come here," the Hunter whispered, holding her arms out towards her.
"It's killing me," Hazel whimpered in realisation, stumbling towards the Time Lady.
The Hunter smiled down at her as she supported Hazel in her arms. A tear rolled down her cheek, splashing down to join the many already adorning Hazel's cheeks. The Hunter sniffed, smiling, and wiped them away with her thumb. "Oh, Hazie..." She sighed happily. "I think I need you." She leaned down and kissed her, their eyes both closing as she started to pull the vortex from Hazel's mind. When the golden energy had transferred across completely, Hazel gasped slightly, her eyes opening. The Hunter pulled away, smiling gently at her through her tears. Hazel managed a small smile back before she fainted in her arms.
The Hunter carried her into the TARDIS, setting her down on the jump seat carefully before exhaling the energy back into the ship. The doors closed, and the TARDIS dematerialised, leaving one revived man stranded on a satellite full of corpses.
~~~
If you enjoyed, please like and/or reblog, and consider donating to my Kofi to help me keep writing! Thanks for reading :)
Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
The Hunter blinked as she woke, finding herself in a cupboard that seemed to be spinning dangerously. She made for a wall to lean against, then yelped as it gave way and she fell out into a brightly-carpeted corridor. "What's happening?" she demanded, struggling to get to her feet.
"Oh my God!" a high-pitched voice squeaked, making her wince. "I don't believe it! Why'd they put you in there? They never said you were coming."
"What happened? I was -" She cut herself off as she lurched sideways, the woman rushing to support her.
"Careful now. Oh! Oh, mind yourself!" she exclaimed as the Hunter hit her head on the wall behind her. "Oh, that's the transmat. It scrambles your head. I was sick for days. All right?" She let her stand for herself, leaning heavily against the wall. "So, what's your name then, sweetheart?"
"Art- no, no, that's not right. The Hunter, I think. I was, er - I don't know. What happened? How -?"
"You got chosen," the blonde woman stated.
The Hunter blinked, holding her head. "Chosen for what?"
"You're a housemate," the woman told her, grinning. "You're in the house. Isn't that brilliant?!"
"That's not fair!" a young man exclaimed. "We've got eviction in five minutes! I've been here for all nine weeks, I've followed the rules, I haven't had a single warning, and then she comes swanning in."
Another woman joined in. "If they keep changing the rules, I'm going to protest, I am. You watch me, I'm going to paint the walls."
A tannoy rang out across the room. "Would the Hunter please come to the Diary Room?" The blonde woman showed the Hunter through a door with a stylised eye on it, and the Time Lady sat in a comfy chair, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. "You are live on channel forty four thousand. Please do not swear."
"You have got to be kidding me," the Hunter rolled her eyes as she finally recognised where she was.
***
Hazel groaned a little as she stirred, blinking when she saw a dark-skinned young man watching over her. "What happened?" she asked, her voice croaky from lack of use.
"It's all right," the man assured her. "It's the transmat. Does your head in. Get a bit of amnesia. What's your name?"
"Hazel. But where's the Hunter?"
"Just remember, do what the android says," the man advised. "Don't provoke it. The android's word is law."
Hazel frowned. "What do you mean, android? Like a robot?"
A woman called out instructions from about twenty yards away. "Positions, everyone! Thank you!"
"Come on, hurry up," the man said, helping Hazel to her feet and supporting her when she stumbled. "Steady, steady."
"I was travelling," Hazel remembered, "with the Hunter and a man called Captain Jack. The Hunter wouldn't just leave me."
"That's enough chat! Positions! Final call! Good luck!"
Hazel blinked, clutching onto the podium for balance. "But I'm not supposed to be here."
"It says Hazel on the podium," the man stated, shrugging. Judging by his podium, he was called Rodrick. "Come on."
"Hold on, I must be going mad," Hazel frowned, looking around at the set-up of the place. "It can't be... This looks like the -"
"Android activated!" the floor manager called.
Hazel's eyes widened as the robot came into view. "Oh my God, the android. The Anne Droid."
"Welcome to The Weakest Link!" the Anne Droid announced.
***
"Here we go again," a female voice sighed. "We've got our work cut out for us."
"I don't know," another stated. "He's sort of handsome. Has a good lantern jaw."
"Lantern jaws are so last year," the first scoffed.
Jack opened his eyes blearily to see a pair of droids - one tall and thin, the other short and curvy - looking down at him. He appeared to be lying on an examination couch, and a quick glance around showed not much more than some mirrors and a few racks of clothes. He grinned nervously. "Sorry, but - nice to meet you, ladies - but where exactly am I?"
"We're giving you a brand new image," one of the droids said. According to the badge on her front, her name was Trine-E.
"Hold on, I was with Queenie and Jules," Jack remembered. Then, what the droid had said caught up to him, and he frowned, standing. "Why, is there something wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"It's all very twentieth century," the other droid, Zu-Zana, complained. "Where did you get that denim?" She was eyeing his jeans suggestively.
"A little place in Cardiff," Jack replied. "It was called the Top Shop."
"Ah!" Zu-Zana clearly knew of it. "Design classic."
"But we're going to have to find you some new colours," Trine-E decided. "Maybe get rid of that Oklahoma Farm Boy thing you've got going on."
"Just stand still and let the Defabricator work its magic," Zu-Zana advised.
Jack frowned. "What's a defabricator?" Trine-E didn't answer, just activated it. Jack looked down at himself as his clothes vanished. "Okay. Defabricator. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?"
"Absolutely!" Trine-E and Zu-Zana cried simultaneously.
Jack grinned confidently. "Ladies, your viewing figures just went up."
***
The Hunter had left the Diary Room to investigate the house. She hadn't got her jacket with her, but thankfully, she'd been using her sonic screwdriver as a decorative piece in her simple up-do, so she was able to use it to try and open the door out of the house. She swore when the door refused to budge. "I can't open it."
"It's got a deadlock seal, ever since Big Brother five hundred and four when they all walked out. You must remember that," the blonde woman told her.
"What about this?" the Hunter asked, indicating what looked like a darkened window.
"Oh, that's exoglass," the woman supplied. "You'd need a nuclear bomb to get through."
The Hunter rolled her eyes, biting her lip as she worried about where Hazel and Jack were. "Don't tempt me."
"I know you're not supposed to talk about the outside world, but you must've been watching," the woman said, looking nervous. "Do people like me? Lynda. Lynda with a Y, not Linda with an I. She got forcibly evicted because she damaged the camera. Am I popular?"
"I don't remember," the Hunter shrugged, trying to brush it off as she searched for a possible exit.
Lynda's eyes widened. "Oh, but does than mean I'm nothing. Some people get this far just because they're insignificant. Doesn't anybody notice me?"
"Oh, is that right?" Lynda's face had lit up. "Is that what I am? Oh, no one's ever told me that before. Am I sweet? Really?"
"Yeah," the Hunter flashed a grin. "Dead sweet."
"Thank you," Lynda smiled sincerely.
The Hunter frowned as she came to the other end of the house. "It's a wall." She remembered times she'd seen it on TV at Jace's flat. "Isn't there supposed to be a garden out there or something?"
Lynda snorted. "Don't be daft. No one's got a garden anymore. Who's got a garden? Don't tell me you've got a garden."
"No, I've just got the TARDIS." The Hunter's eyes widened. "I remember!"
"That's the amnesia," Lynda nodded, grinning. So what happened? Where did they get you?"
"We'd just left Raxacoricofallapatorius," the Hunter remembered. "Then we went to Kyoto. That's right, Japan in 1336, and we only just escaped. We were together, we were laughing, and then there was this light. This white light coming through the walls, and then - and then I woke up here."
"Yeah, that's the transmat beam," Lynda told her. "That's how they pick the housemates."
"Oh, Lynda with a Y. Sweet little Lynda," the Hunter sighed, shaking her head. "It's worse than that. I'm not just a passing traveller. No stupid little transmat gets inside my ship. That beam was fifteen million times more powerful, which means this isn't just a game. There's something else going on." She turned to one of the cameras and glared at it. "Well, here's the latest update from the Big Brother house. I'm getting out. I'm going to find my friends, and then I'm going to find you."
***
"Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen," the floor manager counted down. "Thank you, people. Transmitting in twelve, eleven, ten..."
"But I need to find the Hun-!" Hazel protested.
"Just shut up and play the game," Rodrick hissed. There was something in his voice that made her want to play, if only to kick his ass.
"All right, then," she shrugged. "What the hell. I'm going to play to win!"
"Three, and cue!"
The Anne Droid came to life suddenly. "Let's play The Weakest Link. Start the clock. Agorax, the name of which basic foodstuff is an anagram of the word 'beard'?"
"Bread," Agorax answered, looking scared.
"Correct. Fitch, in the Pan Traffic Calendar, which month comes after Hoob?"
"Is - Is it Clavadoe?" Fitch guessed.
"No, Pandoff. Hazel, in maths, what is 258 minus 158?"
"One hundred," Hazel answered confidently. This wasn't so hard.
"Correct. Rodrick -"
"Bank," he stated.
"Which letter of the alphabet appears in the word dangle but not in the word gland?"
"E," Rodrick answered.
"Correct. Colleen, in social security, what D is the name of the payment given to Martian Drones?"
"Default," she answered.
"Correct, Broff, the Great Cobalt Pyramid is built on the remains of which famous Old Earth Institute?"
"Er, Touchdown," he guessed, trying to sound confident.
"No, Torchwood. Agorax, in language, all five examples of which type of letter appear in the word facetious?"
"Vowels," Agorax answered.
"Correct. Fitch, in biology, which blood cells contain iron? Red or white?"
"White," Fitch tried.
"No, red. Hazel, in the holovid series 'Jupiter Rising', the Grexnik is married to whom?"
Hazel laughed, shrugging. "How should I know?"
"No, the correct answer is Lord Drayvole. Rodrick, in maths, what is nine squared?"
"Eighty one," he answered.
***
Jack was posing in front of the mirror, not looking convinced about his new outfit.
"It's the buccaneer look," Trine-E assured him. "Little dash pirate and just a tweak of President Schwarzenegger."
"Er, not sure about the vest," Jack confessed. "What about a little bit of colour to lift it?"
"Absolutely not," Zu-Zana admonished. "Never wear black with colour. It makes the colour look cheap and the black look boring. Now, let's talk jackets."
"I kind of like the first one," Jack suggested, his mind too busy trying to figure out a plan to focus on the jackets.
"No, that's a bit too much Hell's Angel," Zu-Zana told him. "I think I like the shorter one. Look, waist length, nice and slimming, shows off the bum."
Jack shrugged as she slapped his ass. "Works for me," he smirked.
"Once we've got an outfit, we can look at the face. Ever thought about cosmetic surgery?" Trine-E asked.
"I've considered it, yeah," he nodded. "A little lift around the eyes, tighten up the jaw line. What do you think?"
"Oh, let's have a bit more ambition," Trine-E stated. "Let's go something cutting edge." Her forearm detached to reveal a spinning chainsaw. Jack gulped.
***
"So, Hazel, what do you actually do?" the Anne Droid questioned.
"I just travel around a bit," Hazel shrugged. "Bit of a tourist, I suppose."
"Another way of saying unemployed," the Anne Droid stated.
Hazel narrowed her eyes. "No."
"Have you got a job?"
She blinked. "Well, not really, no, but -"
"Then you are unemployed. And yet, you've still got enough money to buy peroxide," the Anne Droid noted. Hazel frowned. She was a natural blonde! "Why Fitch?"
"Er, I think she got a few of the questions wrong, that's all," Hazel bit her lip.
"Oh, you'd know all about that."
Hazel glared. "Well, yeah, but I can't vote for myself, so it had to be Fitch." She blinked as Fitch burst into tears. "I'm sorry, that's the game. That's how it works. I had to vote for someone."
"Let me try again!" Fitch begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It was the lights and everything. I couldn't think."
"In fact, with three answers wrong, Broff was the weakest link in that round, but it's votes that count," the Anne Droid reported.
"I'm sorry!" Fitch cried. "Please! Oh God, help me!"
"Fitch, you are the weakest link. Goodbye!" A gun came out of the Anne Droid's mouth and the beam it shot disintegrated Fitch.
"And we've gone to the adverts," the floor manager announced. "Back in three minutes."
"What's that?" Hazel demanded, staring in horror at where Fitch had stood, a small pile of dust being all that remained of her. "What just happened?"
"She was the weakest link, she gets disintegrated," Rodrick shrugged. "Blasted into atoms."
"But I voted for her," Hazel whispered, feeling nauseous. "Oh my God. This is sick. All of you, you're just sick! I'm not playing this."
"I'm not playing!" Broff shouted suddenly, drowning her out. "I can't do it! I'm not - Please, somebody let me out of here." He started running across the studio.
"You are the weakest link," the Anne Droid announced, and disintegrated him. "Goodbye."
"Don't try to escape," Rodrick advised a pale Hazel. "It's play or die."
***
"Hunter, they said all the housemates must gather on the sofa," Lynda called. "You've got to."
"I'm busy getting out, thanks," the Hunter told her, sonicing the door to no effect.
"But if you don't obey, then all the housemates get punished," Lynda reasoned.
She shrugged. "Well, maybe I'll be voted out, then."
"How stupid are you?" the man, Strood, demanded. "You've only just joined, you're not eligible."
"Don't try anything clever or we all get it in the neck," Lynda warned as the Hunter sighed, coming over and sitting on the sofa.
The TV in front of them came to life suddenly. "Big Brother House, this is Davina Droid. Crosbie, Lynda, and Strood, you have all been nominated for eviction. And the eighth person to be evicted from the Big Brother House is..." There was a long, drawn-out pause, making the Hunter roll her eyes, lean back and put her feet up on the table. "Crosbie!"
Lynda gasped. "I'm sorry! Oh, I'm sorry! Sorry!"
"Oh, it should've been me," Strood said, hugging Crosbie. "Oh, that's not fair, Crosbie love."
"Crosbie, you have ten seconds to make your farewells, and then we're going to get you."
"I won't forget you," Lynda promised.
"I'm sorry I stole your soap," Crosbie apologised tearfully.
"I don't mind, honestly," Lynda assured her.
"Thanks for the food," Strood said. "You're a smashing cook. Bless you."
"Crosbie, please leave the Big Brother House," Davina Droid ordered. A door opened into a short white corridor, with another door at the far end.
"Bye then," Crosbie whispered. "Bye, Lynda."
"Bye," Lynda sniffed. She and Strood made an arch with their arms and Crosbie walked through into the corridor. The door shut behind her, and she appeared on the TV screen. "I don't believe it. Crosbie."
"It's only a game show," the Hunter pointed out, rolling her eyes. "She'll make a fortune on the outside. Sell her story, release a record, fitness video, all of that. She'll be laughing."
"What do you mean, on the outside?" Lynda asked, staring at her tearfully.
"Here we go," Strood muttered, and the pair of them ran to see Crosbie onscreen.
"What are they waiting for?" the Hunter frowned. "Why don't they just let her go?"
"Stop it, it's not funny!"
"Eviction in five, four, three, two one." A beam came from the ceiling and hit Crosbie. She disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The Hunter, who up until this point had only been half-watching, shot up, her eyes widening. "What was that?"
"Disintegrator beam," Strood replied.
"She's been evicted. From life," Lynda added.
"Are you insane?" the Hunter demanded angrily. "You just step right into the disintegrator? Is it that important, getting your face on the telly? Is it worth dying for?"
"You're talking like we've got a choice!" Lynda shot back.
Now the Time Lady was confused. "But I thought you had to apply."
"Don't be so stupid," Strood scowled. "That's how they played it centuries back."
"You get chosen whether you like it or not," Lynda explained. "Everyone on Earth is a potential contestant. The transmat beam picks you out at random. And it's non-stop. There are sixty Big Brother houses running all at once."
"How many? Sixty?" the Hunter asked, paling.
"They've had to cut back," Strood nodded. "It's not what it was."
"It's a charnel house!" the Hunter retorted. "What about the winners? What do they get?"
"They get to live," Lynda stated.
"Is that it?"
"Well, isn't that enough?"
"Hazel's out there," the Hunter realised. "She and Jack got caught in the transmat. They're contestants. Time I got out." She got up. "That other contestant, uh, Linda with an I. She was forcibly evicted for what?"
"Damage to property," Lynda supplied.
"What, like this?" the Hunter asked, crushing a camera telekinetically.
***
Now Jack was in tennis whites. "No, I'm just not getting this," he sighed, keeping an eye on the droids behind him. "It's just too safe. Too decent. And you'd never keep it clean."
"Stage two, ready and waiting," Zu-Zana announced.
"Bring it on, girls." They disintegrated his clothes again.
"And now it's time for the face off!" Trine-E cheered.
"What does that mean?" Jack asked warily. "Do I get to compete with someone else?"
"No. Like I said, face off." Trine-E started up her chainsaw.
"I think you'd look good with a dog's head," Zu-Zana suggested, snipping a pair of large scizzors menacingly.
"Or maybe no head at all," Trine-E countered. "That would be so outrageous."
"And we could stitch your legs to the middle of your chest," Zu-Zana added.
"Nothing is too extreme," Trine-E declared. "It's to die for."
Jack sighed. "Now, hold on, ladies. I don't want to have to shoot either one of you."
"But you're unarmed!" Trine-E pointed out.
"You're naked!" Zu-Zana added. Jack grabbed a small gun from behind him. "But that's a Compact Laser Deluxe!"
"Where were you hiding that?" Trine-E questioned.
"You really don't want to know," Jack chuckled.
"Give me that accessory," Trine-E ordered, moving forwards with Zu-Zana. Jack shot their heads off.
***
"You are the weakest link. Goodbye!" Colleen was atomised.
"Going to the break!" the floor manager called. "Two minutes on the clock. Just a reminder we've got solar flare activity coming up in ten. Thanks, everyone."
"Colleen was clever," Hazel hissed. "She banked all our money. Why'd you vote for her?"
"Because I want to keep you in," Rodrick told her. "You're stupid! You don't even know the Princess Vossaheen's surname. When it comes to the final, I want to be up against you, so that you get disintegrated and I get a stack load of credits courtesy of the Bad Wolf Corporation."
Hazel had blanched, but not at the disintegration thing. "What do you mean? Who's Bad Wolf?"
"They're in charge," Rodrick shrugged. "They run the Game Station."
"Why are they called Bad Wolf?" Hazel questioned.
"I don't know," he frowned. "It's just a name. It's like an Old Earth nursery rhyme sort of thing - what does it matter?"
"I keep hearing those words everywhere we go," Hazel remembered. "Bad Wolf."
"The things you've seen. The darkness. The big bad wolf."
"Attention all personnel. Bad Wolf One descending."
"Blaidd Drwg."
"What's it mean?"
"Bad Wolf."
She smiled, remembering the little boy that had graffitied Bad Wolf on the TARDIS at the Powell Estate. "Different times, different places, like it's written all over the universe."
"What're you going on about?" Rodrick frowned, confused.
"If the Bad Wolf is in charge of this quiz, then maybe I'm not here by mistake. Someone's been planning this," Hazel realised, seeing a tiny glimmer of hope.
***
"Hunter, you've broken the House Rules. Big Brother has no choice but to evict you. You have ten seconds to make your farewells, and then we're going to get you!"
"That's more like it!" the Hunter grinned, banging on the door. "Come on, then. Open up!"
"You're mad!" Lynda shook her head. "It's like you want to die!"
"I reckon she's a plant," Strood decided. "She was only brought in to stir things up."
"The Hunter, please leave the Big Brother house."
The Hunter grinned, running into the corridor, then smiled for the camera. "Come on, then, disintegrate me! Come on, what're you waiting for? Disintegrate me! What are you waiting for?"
"Eviction in five, four, three, two, one." The machine shut down.
"See! I knew it!" the Hunter grinned victoriously. "You see, someone brought me into this game. If they'd wanted me dead, they could've transmatted me into a volcano. They want me alive." She turned to the door that lead outside. "Maybe security isn't as tight this end. Are you following this? I'm getting out!" She soniced the door, opening it. Lynda opened the other door. "Come with me."
"We're not allowed!" Strood protested.
"Stay in there, you've got a fifty fifty chance of disintegration," the Hunter pointed out. "Stay with me, I promise I'll get you out alive. Come on!"
"No, I can't. I can't," Lynda hesitated.
"Lynda, you're sweet," the Hunter sighed. "From what I've seen of your world, do you think anyone votes for sweet?" She held out her hand. Lynda took it and they left the house. The Hunter frowned as they entered a long, familiar-looking corridor. "Hold on. I've been here before. This is Satellite Five. No guards," she noticed. "That makes a change. You'd think a big business like Satellite Five would be armed to the teeth."
Lynda frowned. "No one's called it Satellite Five in ages. It's the Game Station now. Hasn't been Satellite Five in about a hundred years."
"A hundred years exactly," the Hunter confirmed. "It's the year two zero zero one zero zero. I was here before, Floor One Thirty Nine. The Satellite was broadcasting news channels back then. Had a bit of trouble upstairs. Nothing too serious. Easy. Gave them a hand, home in time for tea."
"A hundred years ago?" Lynda echoed. "What, you were here a hundred years ago?"
"Yep."
"You're looking good on it," she mentioned.
The Hunter flashed her a grin, getting out her sonic screwdriver. "I moisturise. Funny sorts of readings. All kinds of energy. The place is humming. It's weird. This goes way beyond normal transmissions. What would they need all that power for?"
"I don't know," Lynda shrugged. "I think we're the first ever contestants to get outside."
"I had two friends travelling with me," the Hunter stated. "They must've got caught in the same transmat. Where would they be?"
Lynda shrugged again. "I don't know. They could've been allocated anywhere. There's a hundred different games."
"Like what?"
"Well, there's ten floors of Big Brother. There's a different House behind each of those doors. And then beyond that, there's all sorts of shows. It's non-stop. There's Call My Bluff, with real guns. Countdown, where you've got thirty seconds to stop the bomb going off. Ground Force, which is a nasty one. You get turned into compost. Uh, Wipeout, speaks for itself. Oh, and Stars In Their Eyes. Literally, stars in their eyes. If you don't sing, you get blinded."
The Hunter raised her eyebrows. "And you watch this stuff?"
"Everyone does," Lynda told her. "How come you don't?"
"Never paid for my licence," the Hunter shrugged.
"Oh my God!" Lynda gasped, her eyes wide. "You get executed for that."
The Hunter snorted. "I'd like to see them try."
"You keep saying things that don't make sense. Who are you though, Hunter, really?" Lynda asked.
"It doesn't matter," the Time Lady dismissed.
"Well, it does to me. I've just put my life in your hands," Lynda pointed out.
The Hunter smiled briefly. "I'm just a traveller, wandering past. Believe it or not, all I'm after is a quiet life."
"So, if we get out of here, what're you going to do?" Lynda wondered. "Just wander off again?"
"Fast as I can," the Hunter nodded.
"So, I could come with you?" Lynda suggested casually.
"Maybe you could."
"I wouldn't get in the way."
The Hunter smirked. "Yeah, but first, we've got to concentrate on the getting out part. And to do that, you've got to know your enemy. Who's controlling it? Who's in charge of the satellite now?"
"Hold on," Lynda muttered. She ran over to a breaker lever and pulled it, lighting up a sign behind the Hunter. "Your lords and masters." The Hunter turned and blanched when she saw the name - Bad Wolf Corporation.
***
Jack had found himself some decent clothes before starting to take apart the Defabricator for parts. "Compatible systems," he muttered. "Just align the wave signature... Attaboy! Got myself a gun. Well, ladies, the pleasure was all mine. Which is the only thing that matters in the end." He ran out onto Floor Two Ninety Nine, called the lift, then checked his vortex manipulator, scanning the space station. "Two hearts, that's her. Which floor?" He smirked, getting into the lift.
***
"Blimey!" Lynda breathed, looking out of a large observation window to the planet below. "I've never seen it for real before. Not from orbit. Planet Earth."
The Hunter frowned, her brow furrowing at the sight before her. "What's happened to it?"
"Well, it's always been like that," Lynda shrugged. "Ever since I was born. See that there? That's the Great Atlantic Smog Storm. It's been going twenty years. We get newsflashes telling us when it's safe to breath outside."
"So the population just sits there?" the Hunter asked. "Half the world's too fat, and half the world's too thin, and you lot just watch telly?"
"Ten thousand channels, all beaming down from here," Lynda confirmed.
"The Human Race. Brainless sheep being fed on a diet of -" She paused, distracted. "Mind you, have they still got that programme with three people have to live with a bear?"
"Oh, Bear With Me!" Lynda grinned. "I love that one!"
"And me," the Hunter grinned. "The celebrity edition where the bear got in the bath."
"Got in the bath!" Lynda exclaimed at the same time, laughing.
"But it's all gone wrong," the Hunter shook her head, suddenly serious again. "I mean, history's gone wrong again. This should be the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. I don't understand. Last time I was here I put it right."
"No, but that's when it first went wrong," Lynda stated. "A hundred years ago, like you said. All the news channels, they just shut down overnight."
"But that was me," the Hunter blinked. "I did that."
"There was nothing in their place," Lynda explained. "No information. The whole planet just froze. The government, the economy, they collapsed. That was the start of it. One hundred years of hell."
The Hunter had blanched, staring down at the ruin of a planet below. "I made this world," she realised.
***
Agorax screamed as he was disintegrated, and Hazel bit her lip, closing her eyes.
"That leaves Hazel and Rodrick," the Anne Droid announced. "You're going head to head. Let's play The Weakest Link."
Rodrick nodded. "Right, that's the end of tactical voting. You're on your own now."
***
"Hey, gorgeous!" The Hunter whipped round and ran to hug Jack as he stepped out of the lift. "Good to see you too, Queenie. Any sign of Jules?"
"Can't you track her down?" she asked, indicating his vortex manipulator.
He shook his head. "She must still be inside the games. All the rooms are shielded."
"If I can just get inside this computer," she sighed, returning to it. Lynda eyed Jack curiously. "She's got to be here somewhere."
"Well, you'd better hurry up. These games don't have a happy ending," Jack stated.
She bristled. "Do you think I don't know that?"
Jack squeezed her shoulder, handing over his vortex manipulator. "There you go, patch that in. It's programmed to find her."
"Thanks," she muttered, and he turned to Lynda.
"Hey, there."
"Hello," Lynda smiled.
"Captain Jack Harkness."
"Lynda Moss."
Jack winked. "Nice to meet you, Lynda Moss."
The Hunter rolled her eyes. "Do you mind flirting outside?"
"I was just saying hello!" Jack protested, grinning.
"For you, that's flirting," the Hunter reminded him.
"I'm not complaining," Lynda blushed.
"Muchas gracias," Jack grinned.
The Hunter growled. "It's not compatible. This stupid system doesn't make sense!" Jack took off the front plate and started working inside the computer. "This place should be a basic broadcaster, but the systems are twice as complicated. It's more than just television. This station's transmitting something else."
"Like what?" Jack asked.
"I don't know," the Hunter sighed. "This whole Bad Wolf thing's tied up with me. Someone's manipulated my entire life. It's some sort of trap and Hazel is stuck inside it."
***
"Hazel, in geography, the Grand Central Ravine is named after which ancient British city?"
"Is it York?" Hazel guessed.
"No, the correct answer is Sheffield."
***
"Found her," the Hunter exclaimed victoriously. "Floor Four Oh Seven."
Lynda blanched. "Oh my God. She's with the Anne Droid. You've got to get her out of there."
***
"Rodrick, in literature, the author Lucky was Jackie who?"
"Stewart," Rodrick answered.
"No, the correct answer is Collins. Hazel, the oldest inhabitant of Isop Galaxy is the Face of what?"
"Boe!" Hazel exclaimed, ignoring Rodrick's surprised expression. "The Face of Boe!"
"That is the correct answer."
***
"Come on, come on!" the Hunter muttered, bouncing on her toes impatiently in the lift.
***
"Rodrick, in history, who was the President of the Red Velvets?"
"Hoshbin Frane," Rodrick replied.
"That is the correct answer. Hazel, in food, the dish Gaffabeque originated on which planet?"
Hazel bit her lip. "Uh, is it Mars?"
"No, the correct answer is Lucifer. Rodrick, which measurement of length is said to have been defined by the Emperor Jate as the distance from his nose to his fingertip?"
"Would that be a goffle?" Rodrick guessed.
"No, the correct answer is a paab. Hazel, in fashion, Stella Pok Baint is famous for what?"
"Shoes," Hazel replied, shrugging.
"No, the correct answer is hats. Rodrick, in physics, who discovered the Fifteen Dash Ten Barric Fields?"
***
"Game Room Six, which one is it?" the Hunter demanded as they ran out of the lift on Four Oh Seven.
"Over here!" Lynda called.
***
"San Hazeldine," Rodrick stated.
"No, the correct answer is San Chen."
***
"Stand back, let me blast it open," Jack ordered.
The Hunter shook her head, pulling out her sonic screwdriver. "You can't. It's made of Hydra combination."
***
"Hazel, in history, which Icelandic city hosted Murder Spree Twenty?"
"Reykjavik?" Hazel guessed, her heart thumping.
"No, the correct is Pola Ventura." Hazel's heart sank.
"Oh my God! I've done it! You've lost!" Rodrick exclaimed.
***
"Come on, come on, come on," the Hunter muttered under her breath as she worked on the lock.
***
"But I'm not meant to be here!" Hazel protested, close to tears, fighting to keep it together. "I need to find the Hunter, she's got to be here somewhere, she's always here! She wouldn't just leave me!"
"Rodrick, you are the strongest link, you will be transported home with one thousand six hundred credits."
"Oh, thank you, thank you so much!" Rodrick was crying in relief.
"This game is illegal!" Hazel insisted. "I'm telling you to stop!"
The Hunter burst through the door. "Haze! Stop this game!"
"Hazel, you leave this life with nothing."
"Stop this game!" Jack shouted.
"I order you to stop this game!" the Hunter yelled.
"You are the weakest link."
"Look out for the Anne Droid, it's armed!" Hazel cried. She ran towards the Hunter and Jack, and the Anne Droid shot her, the beam disintegrating her instantly. The Hunter ran to where she'd been, kneeling next to the pile of dust.
"Back off!" Jack shouted as guards flooded in, keeping them away from the Hunter. "Don't you touch her! Leave her alone!"
A security guard took the Hunter's arm, trying to pull her away, while another dealt with Jack. "Sir, put down the gun or I'll have to shoot."
"You killed her!" Jack cried, his voice cracking. "Your stupid freaking game show killed her!"
"Ma'am, I'm arresting you under Private Legislation Sixteen of the Game Station Syndicate."
***
"Can you tell us the purpose of this device, ma'am?" A guard brandished the sonic screwdriver in front of the Hunter's emotionless face. "Can you tell us how you got on board?"
"Just leave her alone," Lynda scowled.
The guard glared at her. "I'm asking her. Ma'am? Can you tell us who you are?" He sighed, giving up. "You will be taken from this place to the Lunar Penal Colony, there to be held without trial. You may not appeal against this sentence. Is that understood?"
As a second guard unlocked the cage to let his colleague out, the Hunter glanced at Jack and said the first words she'd spoken since Hazel's death. "Let's do it."
Immediately, Jack kicked out the legs of the guard, before the Hunter telekinetically smashing the other man's head into a wall, then threw them both in the cell and locked the door. Jack grabbed his Defabricator gun, the Hunter took her sonic screwdriver, and Lynda stole the guards' weapons.
They ran to the lift. "Floor 500," the Hunter ordered.
***
"Okay, move away from the desk!" Jack ordered as he left the lift first, aiming his Defabricator gun at the staff. "Nobody try anything clever. Everybody clear. Stand to the side and stay there."
The Hunter came out next, Lynda following her. "Who's in charge of this place?" the Hunter demanded, walking towards a woman who was hooked up to the computers, the Controller.
"Nineteen, eighteen..." the Controller counted.
"This Satellite's more than a Game Station."
"Seventy nine, eighty..."
"Who killed Hazel Norton?"
"All staff are reminded that solar flares -"
"I want an answer!"
"Occur in delta point one -"
"She can't reply," one man exclaimed, then cowered as the Hunter turned to him. "Don't shoot."
"Oh, don't be so thick," the Hunter rolled her eyes. She threw the gun she'd commandeered to him, then glanced at a computer, seeing guards getting into the lifts on some kind of CCTV. "Captain, we've got more guards on the way up. Secure the exits."
Jack nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
The Hunter pointed at the man who now held her gun. "You. What were you saying?"
"But I've got your gun," he stammered.
She narrowed her eyes. "Okay, so shoot me. Why can't she answer?"
"She's uh... Can I put this down?"
"If you want, just hurry up."
"Thanks. Sorry. The Controller is linked to the transmissions. The entire output goes through her brain," the man explained. "You're not a member of staff so she doesn't recognise your existence."
"What's her name?" the Hunter questioned.
"I don't know. She was installed when she was five years old. That's the only life she's ever known."
"Door's sealed," Jack reported. "We should be safe for about ten minutes."
"Keep an eye on them," the Hunter called back, meeting his eyes for a second before looking away, swallowing.
"But that stuff you were saying about something going on with the Game Station," the man said. "I think you're right. I've kept a log. Unauthorised transmats, encrypted signals, it's been going on for years."
"Show me," the Hunter ordered.
***
Jack tried to open another door, seeing if it was an exit. A woman tried to stop him. "You're not allowed in there. Archive Six is out of bounds."
"Lady, I am holding a gun and my sister is dead because of you," Jack glared. "You really wanna tell me what I can and can't do?" She backed off, and he opened the door, grinning a little when he saw the TARDIS. He went inside and activated the monitor. "What the hell?"
***
"Solar flare activity in delta point zero fifteen," the Controller stated.
"If you're not holding us hostage, then open the door and let us out," a woman pleaded. "The staff are terrified."
"That's the same staff who execute hundreds of contestants every day, yes?" the Hunter checked, not looking up from the computer she was looking at.
"Yes, but - That's not out faults! We're just doing our jobs."
The Hunter looked up to give her a cold glare. "And with that sentence you just lost the right to even talk to me. Now back off!" She looked round as the power cut out.
"That's just the solar flares," the man - who'd introduced himself as Pavale - assured her. "They interfere with the broadcast signal, so this place automatically powers down. Planet Earth gets a few repeats. It's all quite normal."
"Hunter," the Controller whispered.
"Hunter?" the woman asked.
The Hunter just barely kept herself from screaming at her. "Whatever it is, you can wait."
"I think she wants you," the woman said, ignoring the Time Lady's anger.
"Hunter? Hunter? Where's the Hunter?"
"I'm here," the Hunter stated, moving to look up at her.
"Can't see. I'm blind. So blind. All my life, blind. All I can see is numbers, but I saw you."
"What do you want?" the Hunter questioned.
"Solar flares hiding me," the Controller muttered. "They can't hear me. My masters, they always listen but they can't hear me now. The sun, the sun is so bright."
"Who are your masters?"
"They wired my head. The name's forbidden. They control my thoughts. My masters. My masters, I had to be careful. They monitor transmissions but they don't watch the programmes. I could hide you inside the games. Knew that you would find me."
"My... my friend died inside your games," the Hunter said, narrowing her eyes.
"Doesn't matter."
The Hunter bristled. "Don't you dare tell me that!"
"They've been hiding. My masters hiding in the dark space, watching and shaping the Earth so, so, so many years. Always been there, guiding humanity, hundreds and hundreds of years."
"Who are they?" the Hunter asked.
"They wait and plan and grow in numbers. They're strong now. So strong, my masters."
"Who are they?"
"But they speak of you, my masters, they fear the Hunter."
"Tell me, who are they?" the Hunter demanded.
The power came back on. "Twenty one, twenty two," the Controller muttered.
"When's the next solar flare?" the Hunter asked.
"Two years time," Pavale stated quietly.
The Hunter swore. "Fat lot of good that is."
"Found the TARDIS," Jack announced, jogging out of Archive Six.
"We're not leaving now," the Hunter told him.
"No, but she worked it out," Jack grinned, moving to a nearby console. "You'll want to watch this. Lynda, could you stand over there for me please?"
"I just want to go home," Lynda mumbled.
"It'll only take a second," Jack promised, flashing that brilliant grin. "Could you stand in that spot, quick as you can. Everybody watching? Okay, three, two, one." He pressed a button. A beam came down, and Lynda vanished in a puff of smoke.
The Hunter blanched, staring at her friend in horror. "But you killed her!"
Jack grinned. "Oh, do you think?" Another button made another beam, and Lynda reappeared.
"What the hell was that?" she asked, looking dazed.
"It's a transmat beam," Jack replied, and the Hunter's eyes widened in hope. "Not a disintegrator, a secondary transmat system. People don't get killed in the games, they get transported across space. Queenie, Jules is still alive!" She hugged him, crying in relief, him laughing happily.
***
Hazel stirred, feeling the ground below her humming. Her eyes widened when she saw a very familiar enemy approaching her. "No, it can't be. You're dead. I saw you die!"
***
"She's out there somewhere," the Hunter whispered, grinning as she worked at a console, trying to figure out where she'd been taken to.
"Hunter," the Controller called, making the Time Lady look up. "Co-ordinates five point six point one -"
The Hunter quickly typed them in. "Don't! The solar flare's gone. They'll hear you."
"Point four three four. No, my masters, no! I defy you! Stigma seven seven -" She disappeared with a scream and a puff of smoke.
"They took her," the Hunter sighed, inputting the co-ordinates. They weren't done yet.
"Look, use that," Pavale said, offering them a disc. "It might contain the final numbers. I kept a log of all the unscheduled transmissions."
"Nice, thanks," Jack smiled. "Captain Jack Harkness, by the way."
"I'm Davitch Pavale."
"Nice to meet you, Davitch Pavale," Jack grinned.
"Time and place, Jack," the Hunter admonished, but it was in much better spirits than it had been earlier.
"Are you saying this entire set-up's been a disguise all along?" a woman asked.
"Going way back," the Hunter confirmed. "Installing the Jagrafess a hundred years ago. Someone's been playing a long game, controlling the human race from behind the scenes for generations."
Jack grinned as he found the co-ordinates. "Click on this. The transmat delivers to that point, right on the edge of the solar system." A hologram screen showed a blank bit of space.
"There's nothing there," the woman pointed out.
The Hunter shook her head. "It looks like nothing because that's what this satellite does. Underneath the transmission there's another signal."
"Doing what?" Pavale asked.
"Hiding whatever's out there," the Hunter replied. "Hiding it from sonar, radar, scanner. There's something sitting right on top of planet Earth, but it's completely invisible. If I cancel the signal..." She typed at the computer, then looked up as she heard Jack's gasp.
He'd blanched at the sight of a familiar bronze saucer, the screen zooming out to show dozens more. "That's impossible. I know those ships. They were destroyed."
"Obviously they survived," the Hunter breathed, her own face paling in horror.
"Who did?" Lynda asked. "Who are they?"
"Two hundred ships," the Hunter whispered. "More than two thousand on board each one. That's just about half a million of them."
"Half a million what?" Pavale demanded.
The Hunter grabbed Jack's hand, squeezing it tight. "Daleks."
***
"Alert. Alert. We are detected."
"It is the Hunter! She has located us. Open communications channel."
"The female will stand. Stand!" Hazel stumbled to her feet amongst the hundreds of Daleks, seeing a viewscreen pop up, showing the Hunter and Jack, and some other people she didn't know.
"I will talk to the Hunter," one Dalek stated, moving forwards.
"Oh, will you?" the Hunter rolled her eyes. "That's nice. Hello!" She waved sarcastically.
"The Dalek stratagem nears completion. The fleet is almost ready. You will not intervene."
"Oh, really? Why's that, then?" the Hunter asked innocently.
"We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated."
The Hunter snorted. "Yeah, no, I don't think so, love."
The Dalek shifted uneasily. "Explain yourself."
"I said, no."
"What is the meaning of this negative?" the Dalek demanded.
"Ooh, you skipped the queue for brains, didn't you? It means no, dumbass."
"But she will be destroyed," the Dalek threatened.
"Nope," the Hunter smiled sweetly. "Because this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to rescue her. I'm going to save Hazel Norton from the middle of the Dalek fleet and then I'm going to save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I'm going to wipe every last bloody Dalek out of the sky!"
"But you have no weapons, no defences, no plan," the Dalek pointed out.
"Yeah," the Hunter agreed. "And doesn't that scare you to death. Haze?"
"Yes, Artie?" Hazel asked, grinning.
The Hunter flashed a quick, reassuring grin. "I'm coming to get you." She soniced the transmission, ending it.
"The Hunter is initiating hostile action."
"The stratagem must advance. Begin the invasion of Earth!"
"The Hunter will be exterminated!"
"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
~~~
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Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
It had been a few months of travelling with Jack, and things were going well. It hadn't taken long for the three of them to become best friends, and the Captain was definitely a valuable addition to the team.
Today's adventure had been wild, and the three of them were celebrating their success with takeaway food. Hazel had insisted on this place she knew in London, and Jack and the Hunter were in the console room awaiting her return.
"So," Jack began, raising his eyebrows at the Time Lady. "What's the deal with you and Hazel?"
The Hunter blinked, looking up at him in surprise. "What? Nothing! There's nothing going on with me and Hazel. Nothing."
Jack gave her a look. "Oh, really? Two beautiful ladies such as yourselves, living together, fighting together, flirting together, both hella gay, and there's nothing there?"
"We're not together," the Hunter insisted, looking away to hide her blush.
"Why not?" he asked. "I mean, what's stopping you?"
"I fought a war," she told him. "Maybe before that, it would've happened, but now? I watched my brother die in my arms and I told myself I'd never let myself be close with someone like that again. Because I'd only lose them like I lost him. And then I meet Hazel and suddenly that promise gets that much harder to keep." She sighed, leaning against the console. "When people get close to me, they get hurt. I don't want that to happen to her."
Jack watched her carefully. "You really think she'll be happier if you're not together? Have you met Hazel? She's tough. I'm sure she can deal."
The Hunter glanced up at him, pushing her long hair out of the way. "Yes, but will she want to?"
***
Half an hour later, the three of them were sat around the table in the kitchen, eating their food.
"You know, when I first met you, I never thought this would happen. This being me not killing you," the Hunter clarified, sending Jack a sweet smile.
He laughed. "Yeah, you really seemed to hate me back then. Was it just 'cause I'm devilishly handsome, or was there something else?"
"Well, I hadn't figured out if I trusted you yet, so I thought I'd see what you'd do to someone who wasn't sold on you from three glasses of champagne and a dance by Big Ben," the Hunter shrugged.
"Hey!" Hazel pouted, and Jack ruffled her hair, grinning.
"You looked like a survivor," the Hunter finished.
"What, and that's a bad thing?" Jack asked, starting in on his cheeseburger.
The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Not necessarily. But it's a thing my brother taught me - 'Never trust a survivor until you find out what they did to survive'."
Hazel blinked. "That's kind of morbid."
"It makes sense though," Jack pointed out. "Was your brother big on depressing truths?"
"Apollo was... funny. Without those depressing truths he would have been unbearable. He was my brother, after all. Can't say I've never had the strong urge to set him on fire, but I loved him." She shook her head. "Gotta remember that past tense."
Hazel put her hand over the Time Lady's and squeezed, making her smile. As he went to get a drink, Jack waggled his eyebrows at her behind the human girl's back. "Get in there," he mouthed.
The Hunter snorted, then laughed, and within minutes, they were all crying with laughter.
~~~
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Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
The Hunter looked up as the TARDIS took on a purplish tinge, the cloister bell tolling in the distance. She gently settled Hazel on her bed, then left as quietly as she could to find out what was going on.
By the time Hazel appeared in the console room, having changed her clothes, the Hunter was chasing a small spacecraft, making the ship tilt dangerously. "What's the emergency?" the human girl asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes with one hand as she held onto the console with the other.
"It's mauve," the Hunter replied, her eyes flickering over before returning to the screen she was watching to make some small adjustments to her flying.
"Mauve?" Hazel echoed, frowning.
"The universally recognised colour for danger," the Hunter told her, like it was obvious.
Hazel raised her eyebrows. "What happened to red?"
The Hunter snorted. "That's just humans. By everyone else's standards, red's camp." She stopped flitting around the console for a moment, grinning nostalgically. "Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing." She noticed Hazel looking at the ship they were chasing on the monitor. "It's got a very basic flight computer. I've hacked in, slaved the TARDIS. Where it goes, we go."
"And that's safe, is it?" Hazel checked.
"Totally," the Hunter assured her, then winced as something exploded on the console near her. "Okay, reasonably. I forgot to say reasonably." She was distracted by what she was seeing on the monitor. "Oh no you don't! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us!"
"What exactly is this thing?" Hazel asked, shouting over the engines as the Hunter attempted to get closer to the ship.
"No idea," the Time Lady replied, shrugging.
"Then why are we chasing it?"
"It's mauve and dangerous, and about thirty seconds from the centre of London," the Hunter replied, grinning as she threw the dematerialisation lever.
***
Hazel stepped out into a dark alleyway between two terraces of crowded housing. The Hunter was right behind her, locking the door to the TARDIS. She looked around and snorted. "Do know how long you can knock around space without happening to bump into Earth?"
"Five days?" Hazel guessed. "Or is that just when we're out of milk?"
The Hunter shook her head fondly. "Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month."
"A month?" Hazel echoed, frowning. "We were right behind it."
"It was jumping time tracks all over the place," the Hunter protested. "We're bound to be a little bit out. Do you want to drive?!"
Hazel grinned cheekily. "Wouldn't mind, actually." She laughed as the Hunter blinked, pulling her coat tighter around her. "What's the plan, then? Are you going to do a scan for alien tech or something?"
The Hunter snorted. "Haze, it hit the middle of London with a very loud bang. I'm going to ask." She showed Hazel her psychic paper ID for the occasion.
"Dr Art Smith, Ministry of Asteroids?" Hazel read, raising her eyebrows.
"Yep," the Hunter nodded as they came up to a door marked 'Deliveries Only'.
"Not very Spock, is it, just asking," Hazel pointed out.
"Haze, it's a piece of paper that reads your mind," the Hunter cocked an eyebrow. "Door, music, people. What do you think?"
"I think you should do a scan for alien tech," Hazel told her matter-of-factly. "Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?"
The Hunter rolled her eyes, opening the door with her sonic screwdriver, then eyed her friend's Union Flag top. "Are you sure about that t-shirt?"
Hazel looked down at it, making a face. "Too early to say. I'm taking it out for a spin."
"Huh. Well, come on, if you're coming. It won't take a minute," the Hunter shrugged, going inside the club.
"Mummy?" Hazel blinked, about to follow her friend in. "Mummy?" She turned around, walking a little ways away from the building and looked around, before seeing a little boy wearing a gas mask on a nearby roof. "Art? Artie? There's a kid up there!"
***
The Hunter followed a waiter through a bead curtain to the main room of the club, where a saxophonist and a jazz band were accompanying a woman in a long red dress.
***
"Are you all right up there?" Hazel called. The child turned in her direction, not moving from the roof.
"Mummy?"
Hazel swore, then saw a metal fire escape and started to climb.
***
When the singer finished, the Hunter clapped with everyone else, then took her place at the microphone. "Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention, just for a minute? I'll be quick. Hello!" She grinned as the audience focused on her. "Might seem like a bit of a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?"
The audience stared at her with varying expressions of confusion, then burst out laughing. She narrowed her eyes.
***
Hazel reached the top of the fire escape where it came out on a flat roof. The child was further up, on a taller, triangular roof. "Mummy?"
"Okay, hang on," Hazel called. "Don't move!" She bit her lip, looking up at the other roof. How the hell was she supposed to get up there? Suddenly, a rope dangled down in front of her. She shrugged, testing it.
***
"Sorry, have I said something funny?" the Hunter asked, frowning at the laughing crowd. This was decidedly not the reaction she had been expecting. "It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago."
The laughter was cut off by a loud, familiar-sounding siren. Everyone became silent, bustling around to grab their possessions and leave.
"Would've landed quite near here," the Hunter continued, sighing as her audience all left. Then she saw the poster on the opposite wall that their bodies had previously been hiding - Hitler will send no warning. She sighed again. "I'm an idiot."
***
Hazel had found the rope secure enough and was using to climb the roof to reach the child. How the hell she planned on getting back down with the child was anyone's guess.
"Mummy!" the child cried. "Balloon!" He pointed, and Hazel looked up to see a huge barrage balloon from which she was hanging. The balloon drifted away, and she clung on for dear life, her eyes wide as she dangled above the alleyway.
"Artie! Artie! Artemis!" Searchlights combed the sky in the distance, and she flinched as something exploded nearby and she yelped as a squadron of German planes headed for her. "Okay, maybe not this t-shirt," she murmured shakily.
***
"Hazel?" the Hunter called as she exited the club to find the alleyway deserted. A cat meowed nearby, and she picked it up, scratching its head. "You know, one day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet someone who gets the whole don't wander off thing. Nine hundred years of phone box travel, it's the only thing left to surprise me." She paused as the TARDIS' telephone rang, putting the cat down. Frowning, she got closer, opening the small door and staring at the phone. "Why are you doing that? You don't do that, that's not your job. You're supposed to sit there looking pretty." She took her screwdriver from her pocket, absently brushing cat hairs from her coat.
"Don't answer it. It's not for you."
The Hunter whipped around to see a young woman in the alleyway, keeping to the shadows. She narrowed her eyes a little. "And how do you know that?"
"'Cause I do," the woman stated. "And I'm telling you, don't answer it."
"Well, if you know so much, tell me this," the Hunter requested, looking back at the phone. "How can it be ringing? It's not even a real phone. It's not connected, it's not -" By the time she turned back, the girl had gone. The Hunter sighed, then shrugged and answered the phone. "Hello? Hello? This is the Hunter speaking. How may I help you?"
"Mummy? Mummy?"
"Who is this?" the Hunter frowned. "Who's speaking?"
"Are you my mummy?"
"Who is this?" the Hunter asked again, biting her lip.
"Mummy?"
"How did you ring here? This isn't a real phone. It's not wired up to anything."
"Mummy?" The dialling tone hit, and the Hunter hung up, before knocking on the TARDIS door.
"Haze? Hazel, you in there?" She turned when she heard a noise outside the alley, going to investigate.
"The planes are coming. Can't you hear them? Into the shelter. None of your nonsense, now move it!"
The Hunter followed the shouting to a garden wall, which she stood on a dustbin to see over. In the garden, a well-fed woman was ushering her young son into an air raid shelter.
"Come on, hurry up, get in there. Come on. Arthur! Arthur, will you hurry up? Didn't you hear the siren?"
Her equally rotund husband came waddling out of the house, shaking his fist at the sky. "Middle of dinner, every night. Blooming Germans! Don't you eat?!"
"I can hear the planes!" his wife called.
"Don't you eat?"
"Oh, keep your voice down, will you?" she chastised. "It's an air raid! Get in. Look, there's a war on."
"I know there's a war on. Don't push me."
Their voices cut off as the woman slammed the door of the shelter shut, and the Hunter narrowed her eyes as she saw the girl from the alleyway enter the garden and the house. Quietly, she followed.
***
An officer in a WWII greatcoat was standing on the balcony just outside the officers' mess hall, using a pair of very non-WWII binoculars to watch Hazel as she struggled to hold on to the rope she dangled from.
"Get those lights out, please," one officer ordered. "Everyone down to the shelter."
"Jack?" another officer, Algy, called as he put grabbed his weapon. "Are you going down to the shelter? Only I've got to go off on some silly guard duty." He looked in the direction Jack was staring. "Ah, barrage balloon, eh? Must've come loose. Happens now and then. Don't you RAF boys use them for target practice?"
Jack zoomed in on Hazel's flailing body. "Excellent bottom," he drawled, his accent very clearly American.
Algy blushed, thinking he was talking about him. "I say, old man, there's a time and a place. Look, you should really be off."
"Sorry, old man. I've got to go meet a girl," Jack smiled, putting his binoculars away. "But you've got an excellent bottom too."
***
Inside the house, the girl from the alleyway filled a small sack with provisions from the cupboards, then headed for the front door. Outside, she whistled twice, then came back in, followed by a bunch of grubby street kids. "Many kids out there?" she asked.
"Yes, miss." Their eyes widened when they saw the spread on the dining table, and they dived for the food.
"Ah!" the girl called sharply, making them stop. "Still carving. Sit and wait. We've got the whole air raid."
"Look at that," one of the boys said, pointing at the meat the girl was carving. "Bet it's off the black market."
"That's enough," the girl snapped, but she was smiling.
***
Hazel was dangling above Westminster when a bomb exploded below her. She'd been holding onto the rope for what seemed like hours, and she was freezing. When a second bomb exploded, she lost her grip and fell, screaming. Suddenly, her fall halted, and she was caught mid-air in a pale blue beam.
"Okay, okay, I've got you," an American voice soothed, seemingly coming from nowhere.
"I'm just programming your descent pattern," Jack stated. "Keep as still as you can and keep your hands and feet inside the light field."
"Descent pattern?" Hazel echoed, doing as he asked.
"Oh, and could you switch off your cell phone?" He chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "No, seriously, it interferes with my instrument."
"You know, no one ever believes that," Hazel pointed out, but she did turn her phone off.
"Thank you. That's much better."
She snorted. "Oh, yeah, that's a real load off, that is. I'm hanging in the sky in the middle of a German air raid with the Union Jack across my chest, but hey - my mobile phone's off."
"Actually, it's the Union Flag. You're not flying at sea," Jack told her. "Be with you in a moment." After a minute, he spoke again. "Ready for you. Hold tight!"
"To what?!" she demanded.
"Oh, yeah, actually, that's a fair point," Jack stated, as if he hadn't thought of that before.
Before Hazel could yell at him, she fell down the light field and into his arms.
"I've got you," he assured her, holding her comfortably bridal style. "You're fine, you're just fine. The tractor beam, it can scramble your head just a little."
"Hello," Hazel breathed, staring up at him. For a guy, he was pretty fit.
"Hello," he grinned back.
"Hello," she repeated, before shaking her head. "Sorry, that was hello twice there. Dull, but thorough, right?"
"Are you all right?" Jack asked.
"Fine," she told him. He set her down on her feet. "What, you expecting me to faint or something?"
"You do look a little dizzy," Jack admitted, watching her carefully.
Hazel snorted. "What about you, Ken doll? You're not even in focus." And with that, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fainted into his waiting arms. He rolled his eyes, putting her into one of his ship's seats.
***
"It's got to be black market," another boy agreed. "You couldn't get all this on coupons."
"Ernie, how many times?" the woman chastised. "We are guests in this house. We will not make comments of that kind. Washing up." The other children laughed as Ernie groaned.
"Nancy!" he complained.
Nancy turned to another boy. "Haven't seen you at one of these before."
The boy nudged the child next to him. "He told me about it."
"Sleeping rough?"
"Yes, miss."
"All right, then," Nancy nodded, then looked around at all of them. "One slice each, and I want to see everyone chewing properly." A plate of the meat she'd sliced was handed around.
"Thank you, miss."
"Thanks, miss."
"Thank you, miss."
"Thanks, miss!" the Hunter grinned when the plate came to where she'd been hiding behind the door. The children yelped, gasping and running away from her.
"It's all right," Nancy told them, eyeing the Hunter. "Everybody stay where you are!"
"Good here, eh?" the Hunter smiled. "Who's got the salt?"
"Back in your seats," Nancy instructed. "She shouldn't be here either."
"So, you lot, what's the story?" the Hunter asked.
"What do you mean?" Ernie frowned.
"You're homeless, right? Living rough?" she guessed.
"Why do you want to know that?" another boy demanded. "Are you a copper?"
She scoffed. "Of course I'm not a copper. What's a copper going to do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving? I make it 1941. You lot shouldn't even be in London. You should've been evacuated to the country by now."
"I was evacuated," one boy admitted. "Sent me to a farm."
"So why'd you come back?" the Hunter asked, concerned.
"There was a man there," he shrugged.
"Yeah, same with Ernie," another boy piped up. "Two homes."
"Shut up," Ernie muttered. "It's better on the streets anyway. It's better food."
"Yeah," the boy agreed. "Nancy always gets the best food for us."
"So, that's what you do, is it, Nancy?" the Hunter quirked an eyebrow at the woman.
"What is?" Nancy asked defensively.
"As soon as the sirens go, you find a big fat family meal still warm on the table with everyone down in the air raid shelter and bingo! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don't get you," the Hunter shrugged.
Nancy put her hands on her hips. "Something wrong with that?"
"Wrong with it?" The Hunter snorted. "It's brilliant. I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."
"Why'd you follow me?" Nancy questioned. "What do you want?"
The Hunter narrowed her eyes slightly. "I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call. You seem to be the one to ask."
"I did you a favour. I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling you."
She nodded. "Great, thanks. And I want to find a blonde in a Union Flag. I mean a specific one. i didn't just wake up this morning with a craving. Anybody seen a girl like that?" She bit her lip when the kids all shook their heads. Then she pouted as Nancy took her plate away. "What have I done wrong?"
"You took two slices," Nancy told her, her lips twitching. "No blondes, no flags. Anything else before you leave?"
The Hunter's eyes widened. "Ooh, yeah, there is actually. Thanks for asking, I nearly forgot. Something I've been looking for. Would've fallen from the sky about a month ago, but not a bomb. Not the usual kind, anyway. Wouldn't have exploded. Probably would have just buried itself in the ground somewhere, and it would have looked something like this." She held up a sketch.
A knock on the door made everyone jump, even the Hunter. "Mumm? Are you in there, mummy?"
The Hunter narrowed her eyes. She peeked out the window to see a little boy in a gas mask.
"Mummy?" he called.
"Who was the last one in?" Nancy questioned.
"Her," Ernie said, pointing to the Hunter.
"No, she came round the back," Nancy shook her head. "Who came in the front?"
"Me," one boy admitted.
"Did you close the door?" Nancy questioned him.
"Er -"
"Did you close the door?" Nancy demanded.
He shook his head timidly. Nancy ran to bolt the door as the child kept calling.
"What's this, then?" the Hunter frowned, folding her arms as she leaned in the doorway, watching. "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know."
"Oh, and I suppose you'd know," Nancy scoffed.
"I do actually, yes," the Hunter admitted. "I loved my brother, but he could be a dick sometimes."
Nancy frowned, then shook her head. "It's not exactly a child."
"Mummy?"
She pushed past the Hunter into the dining room and started ushering the kids out. "Right, everybody out. Across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!" She crouched in front of the one remaining girl, who couldn't have been older than four. "Come on, baby, we've got to go, all right? It's just like a game. Just like chasing. Take your coat, go on. Go!"
"Mummy? Mummy? Please let me in, mummy. Please let me in, mummy." A small hand came through the letterbox.
"Are you all right?" the Hunter asked, moving along the hallway towards it.
"Please let me in," the child whimpered.
Suddenly, a vase crashed into the hand, and it quickly withdrew through the letterbox.
"You mustn't let him touch you!" Nancy cried.
The Hunter turned to look at her, frowning in confusion. "What happens if he touches me?"
"He'll make you like him."
"And what's he like?"
Nancy glanced over her shoulder in the direction the kids had gone. "I've got to go."
"Nancy, what's he like?" the Hunter demanded.
"He's empty," Nancy whispered. The telephone rang. "It's him. He can make phones ring. He can. Just like with that police box you saw."
The Hunter picked up the phone. "Are you my mummy?" the child asked from the other end.
Nancy slammed the phone back onto the hook. The radio started up in the dining room, swiftly followed by toys upstairs.
"Mummy? Please let me in, mummy. Mummy, mummy, mummy."
Nancy shivered. "You stay if you want to." She left by the back door, and the Hunter turned around as the child put his hand through the letterbox. She noticed a small fork-shaped scar on the back of it.
"Mummy? Let me in please, mummy. Please let me in."
"Your mummy isn't here," the Hunter told him softly, edging closer.
"Are you my mummy?"
"No mummies here, not anymore. Nobody here but you and me."
"I'm scared."
"Why are those other children frightened of you?" the Hunter asked, curious.
"Please let me in, mummy. I'm scared of the bombs."
"Okay, I'm opening the door now." The child pulled back his hand. Keeping a distance, the Hunter telekinetically unbolted and opened the door, but the street was deserted. She frowned.
***
"Better now?" Jack asked as Hazel came to in the co-pilot seat.
She blinked groggily, yawning. "You got lights in here?"
Jack turned the lights on to reveal they were sitting in a small, cramped spaceship. "Hello."
"Hello."
"Hello."
Hazel narrowed her eyes. "How about we don't start that again?"
"Okay," he agreed easily, flashing a brilliant smile.
"So, who're you, then?" she asked.
"Captain Jack Harkness, One Three Three Squadron, Royal Air Force. American volunteer." He handed her an ID card.
She snorted. "Liar. This is psychic paper. It tells me whatever you want it to tell me."
Jack blinked, taken aback. "How do you know?"
"Two things. One, I have a friend who uses this all the time," Hazel began.
"Ah," Jack sighed.
"And two, you just handed me a piece of paper telling me you're single and you work out," she pointed out.
"Tricky thing, psychic paper," Jack muttered, having the grace to look a little embarrassed at least.
"Yeah," Hazel nodded, grinning. "Can't let your mind wander when you're handing it over." She gave it back.
Jack read it, and sighed. "'Not a chance, Romeo'? Jules, you wound me."
Hazel frowned. "Jules?"
"Juliet," Jack explained, before narrowing his eyes. "That's the right play, isn't it?"
She smiled. "Yeah. Maybe we should try and get along without the psychic paper?"
"That would be better, wouldn't it?" Jack nodded, laughing.
Hazel looked around appreciatively. "Nice spaceship."
"Gets me around," Jack shrugged.
"Very Spock," Hazel complimented.
Jack blinked. "Who?"
"Oh, come on! You know Shakespeare, but you don't know Star Trek? You are so not a local boy."
"A cell phone, a liquid crystal watch, and fabrics that won't be around for at least another two decades?" Jack raised his eyebrows. "Guessing you're not a local girl."
"Guessing right," she nodded, going to clap sarcastically, before hissing in pain.
"Burn your hands on the rope?" Jack guessed.
"Yeah." She froze as a bomb whistled past in front of them. "We're parked in midair! Can't anyoen down there see us?"
"No," Jack said impatiently. "Can I have a look at your hands for a moment?"
She frowned, holding them to her chest suspiciously. "Why?"
"Please?" He gave her puppy dog eyes, and she relented. "You can stop acting now," he muttered as he gently brushed his fingertips over her palms. "I know exactly who you are. I can spot a Time Agent a mile away."
"Time Agent?" Hazel echoed, trying not to sound too confused.
Jack nodded. "I've been expecting one of you guys to show up. Though not, I must say, by barrage balloon." He glanced up at her with a cheeky grin. "Do you often travel that way?"
"Sometimes I get swept off my feet. By balloons," she was quick to specify. "What are you doing?"
Jack wrapped his navy blue scarf around her wrists. "Try to keep still."
"Okay," she frowned. "Kinky?"
He winked at her, then pushed a button on the console. What looked like golden, glowing butterflies flew to her burnt palms, healing them. "Nanogenes," he corrected. "Sub-atomic robots. The air in here is full of them. They just repaired three layers of your skin."
Hazel smiled as the glow dissipated and he untied her wrists, his fingers warm on her chilled skin. "Tell them thanks."
"Shall we get down to business?" Jack suggested.
She blinked. "Business?"
"Shall we have a drink on the balcony? Bring up the glasses." He opened a hatch in the ceiling, and climbed out, carrying a bottle of champagne, before helping Hazel up with the flutes.
She laughed shakily, seeing the fires of London right below her feet. "I know I'm standing on something." Jack pressed a button on a remote control, and the ship appeared beneath them. "Oh, okay. You have an invisible spaceship. That's cool."
"Yeah," he smirked.
"Tethered up to Big Ben for some reason?"
"First rule of active camouflage," he told her, opening the bottle and filling the glasses she'd brought up. "Park somewhere you'll remember."
***
Nancy went to a hidden shack in some railway sidings and carefully hid the food she'd stolen from the house. When she stood up, she saw the Hunter watching her with a grin. "How'd you follow me here?" she demanded.
"I'm good at following," the Hunter shrugged, leaning in the doorway.
"People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to," Nancy frowned.
"Yeah, but there's actually a reason they call me the Hunter." She paused. "I think."
"Goodnight, miss," Nancy turned away.
"Nancy, there's something chasing you and the other kids," the Hunter stated hastily. "Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy, and it started about a month ago, right? The thing I'm looking for, the thing that fell from the sky, that's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"There was a bomb," Nancy admitted. "A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."
"Take me there," the Hunter requested.
"There's soldiers guarding it," Nancy told her. "Barbed wire. You'll never get through."
The Hunter smirked. "Try me."
"You sure you want to know what's going on in there?" Nancy checked.
"I really want to know."
"Then there's someone you need to talk to first."
"And who might that be?" the Hunter asked.
"The Doctor." She froze.
***
"You know, it's getting a bit late," Hazel giggled, downing the last of her champagne as they sat on the roof of the spaceship. "I should really be getting back."
"We're discussing business," Jack told her, filling her glass back up.
She snorted. "This isn't business. This is champagne."
"I try never to discuss business with a clear head," Jack grinned. "Are you travelling alone? Are you authorised to negotiate with me?"
"What would we be negotiating?" Hazel asked, raising her eyebrows.
"I have something for the Time Agency," Jack confessed. "Something they'd like to buy. Are you in power to make payment?"
Hazel bit her lip. "Well, I... I should talk to my companion."
"Companion?" Jack echoed.
"I should really be getting back to her," Hazel nodded.
"Her?"
"Do you have the time?" she asked, sipping her drink. Jack pressed a button, and Big Ben's face lit up as it struck nine thirty. "Ooh, that was flash."
Jack smirked. "So when you say your companion, just how disappointed should I be?"
Hazel smiled at his persistence. "Okay, we're standing in midair..."
"Mmhmm," Jack inclined his head.
"On a spaceship, during a German air raid. Do you really think now's a good time to be coming on to me?" She raised her eyebrows.
"Perhaps not," he decided, nodding.
Hazel shrugged. "Wouldn't have worked anyway."
Jack smiled. "Do you like Glenn Miller, Jules?" He used his remote control again, and Moonlight Serenade began to play. He took Hazel into his arms, and they began to slowdance. "It's 1941, the height of the London Blitz, the height of the German bombing campaign, and something else has fallen on London. A fully equipped Chula warship. The last one in existence, armed to the teeth. And I know where it is, because I parked it. If the Agency can name the right price, I can get it for you. But in two hours, a German bomb is going to fall on it and destroy it forever. That's your deadline. That's the deal. Now, shall we discuss payment?"
"Do you know what I think?" Hazel asked.
"What?"
"I think you were talking just then," Hazel smiled.
"Two hours, the bomb falls," Jack stressed. "There'll be nothing left but dust and a crater."
She snorted. "Promises, promises."
"Are you listening to any of this, Jules?" Jack sighed.
"You used to be a Time Agent, now you're some kind of freelancer," she recited.
"Well, that's a little harsh," he smiled, spinning her. "I like to think of myself as a criminal."
Hazel laughed. "I bet you do."
"So, this companion of yours, does she handle the business?" Jack questioned.
"Well, I delegate a lot of that, yeah," Hazel nodded.
"Well, maybe we should go find her," Jack suggested, keeping them swaying in place.
"And how're you going to do that?" she raised an eyebrow expectantly.
"Easy. I'll do a scan for alien tech."
She grinned. "Finally, a professional."
***
The Hunter was looking through binoculars at the area Nancy had brought her to while the girl pointed things out. "The bomb's under that tarpaulin. They put the fence up over night. See that building? The hospital."
"What about it?" the Hunter asked, shifting her gaze.
"That's where the doctor is," Nancy said. "You should talk to him."
"For now, I'm more interested in getting in there," the Hunter stated, indicating the fenced-off area.
"Talk to the doctor first," Nancy pleaded.
The Hunter frowned. "Why?"
"Because then maybe you won't want to get inside," Nancy told her, then turned away and started walking.
"Where're you going?"
"There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed." She shrugged. "Should be safe enough now."
"Can I ask you a question? Who did you lose?"
Nancy stopped in her tracks. "What?"
"The way you look after all those kids. It's because you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it," the Hunter assumed.
"My little brother. Jamie," Nancy admitted. "One night I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me, I told him it was dangerous, but he just... He just didn't like being on his own."
"What happened?" the Hunter asked quietly. She could empathise with losing a brother.
"In the middle of an air raid?" Nancy scoffed. "What do you think happened?"
The Hunter shook her head. "It's amazing."
Nancy frowned. "What is?"
"Well, 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me." She smiled. "Off you go, then. Do what you've got to do. Save the world."
Nancy shook her head at her, and started to walk away.
***
Five minutes later, the Hunter was breaking into the hospital. Every bed she saw was occupied with a very still patient wearing a gas mask. She was looking over one of them when an elderly doctor appeared, leaning heavily on a walking stick.
"You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them," he stated.
She nodded. "Yes, I saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?"
"They're not," he said. She narrowed her eyes a fraction. "Who are you?"
"Are you the doctor?"
"Dr Constantine," he nodded. "And you are?"
She showed him her psychic paper. "Dr Art Smith. Nancy sent me."
"Nancy?" he echoed. "That means you must've been asking about the bomb."
"Yes."
"What do you know about it?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. It's why I was asking. What do you know?"
"Only what it's done," Constantine shrugged.
The Hunter indicated the patients around her. "These people, they were all caught up in the blast?"
"None of them were," Constantine countered. His chuckle swiftly morphed into a racking cough, and he took a seat by the ward sister's desk.
"You're very sick," the Hunter noted.
"Dying, I should think," he agreed. "I just haven't been able to find the time. You said you were a doctor. Of medicine?"
"I have my moments," she inclined her head.
"Have you examined any of them yet?"
"No." She moved over to one of the patients.
"Don't touch the flesh," he warned.
"Which one?" she asked.
"Any one." After a moment of her looking at the patient, he coughed. "Conclusions?"
"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any burns," she reported.
"Examine another one," he suggested.
She took a quick look at the next patient, then frowned. "This isn't possible."
"Examine another."
She did so, and her brow furrowed deeper. "This isn't possible."
"No," Constantine agreed.
"They've all got the same injuries."
"Yes."
"Exactly the same."
"Yes."
"Identical, all of them, right down to the scar on the back of the hand," she noticed, fighting the urge to back up when she saw that same scar on Constantine's hand. "How did this happen?" she demanded. "How did it start?"
"When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim," Constantine stated.
"Dead?" she checked.
"At first," he admitted. "His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"
"The head trauma," she guessed.
"No."
"Asphyxiation."
"No."
"The collapse of the chest cavity."
"No."
She narrowed her eyes. "All right. What was the cause of death?"
"There wasn't one. They're not dead." He hit a metal waste basket with his walking stick, and the patients all stood up. The Hunter automatically stepped back. "It's all right," he assured her. "They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die."
"And they've just been left here?" she asked. "Nobody's doing anything?" The patients laid back again.
"I try and make them comfortable," he shrugged. "What else is there?"
"Just you?" she checked. "You're the only one here?"
"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather," he stated. "Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."
She bit her lip. "Yeah. I know the feeling."
"I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb," he coughed.
"Probably too late," she guessed.
"No. There are isolated cases. Isolated cases breaking out all over London." He coughed again, and she made to help him, but he waved her away. "Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."
"Nancy?" she echoed, eyeing him warily.
"It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might - Mummy? Are you my mummy?" Starting with his mouth, Dr Constantine's morphed grotesquely into a gas mask.
"Hello?" an American voice called.
"Hello?" Hazel's voice echoed down the corridor. The Hunter looked up, starting to follow the noise.
"Hello?" The American man smiled when he saw her. "Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness." He shook her hand. "I've been hearing all about you on the way over."
Hazel hugged her. "Go with it," she whispered, before raising her voice. "He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents."
"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Uhura," Jack smiled, then walked past her into the ward.
The Hunter frowned. "Star Trek? Really?"
"What was I supposed to say?" Hazel asked. "I didn't think you'd want him calling you Art. Don't you ever get tired of Hunter?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Nine centuries in, I'm coping. Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll."
Hazel snorted, grinning cheekily. "Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid."
"Wait, what?!"
"Listen, what's a Chula warship?" she changed the subject.
"Chula?" the Hunter echoed, narrowing her eyes.
They entered the ward to find Jack using what looked to the Hunter like a vortex manipulator to examine the patients. "This just isn't possible. How did this happen?"
"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" the Hunter questioned.
"What?" Jack blinked.
"He said it was a warship," Hazel supplied helpfully. "He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer."
"What kind of warship?" the Hunter inquired.
"Does it matter?" Jack deflected. "It's got nothing to do with this."
"This started at the bomb site; it's got everything to do with it. What kind of warship?" she demanded coldly.
"An ambulance!" Jack exclaimed. "Look." He produced a hologram of it from his vortex manipulator. "That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty, I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle - love the retro look, by the way, nice panels - threw you the bait -"
"Bait?" Hazel echoed, frowning.
"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk," Jack admitted, sighing.
"You said it was a war ship," Hazel narrowed her eyes.
"They have ambulances in wars," Jack said defensively. "It was a con, Jules. I was conning you. That's what I am, I'm a con man. I thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you."
"Just a couple more freelancers," Hazel admitted, smirking.
"Oh, should've known," Jack shook his head. "The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but Ice Queen?" The Hunter shrugged at the description. "Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship."
"What is happening here, Artie?" Hazel asked.
"Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot," the Hunter muttered.
Hazel frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things," the Hunter guessed. "But why? What's the point?" The patients suddenly sat up, and she froze.
"Mummy? Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?"
"What's happening?" Hazel wondered, watching them carefully.
"I don't know," the Hunter admitted.
The patients got out of their beds, and Dr Constantine joined them. "Mummy?"
"Don't let them touch you," the Hunter warned.
"What happens if they touch us?" Hazel inquired.
"You're looking at it," the Time Lady replied darkly, backing up as the patients closed in.
"Help me, mummy."
~~~
If you enjoyed, please like and/or reblog, and consider helping a girl out by donating to my Kofi! Thanks for reading :)
Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
The girls had decided to have some rest before embarking on another trip, but the next morning, they were at it again. "Hold that one down!" the Hunter ordered as she and Hazel flew the TARDIS.
"I'm holding this one down!" Hazel protested. The other button was halfway across the console.
"Well, hold both of them down!" the Hunter retorted, giving her a grin.
Hazel rolled her eyes, holding the other button down with her foot. "You asked for it."
"Oi!" the Hunter exclaimed, readjusting her foot to better hold down the button. "I promised you a time machine and that's what you're getting. We've done the future, now let's have a look in the past." She thought for a second. "1860. How does 1860 sound?"
"What happened in 1860?" Hazel wondered, having to shout over the time rotor.
The Hunter grinned. "Haven't the slightest! Let's find out! Hold on, here we go!" The TARDIS hit its bumpiest part of the ride, and the two girls were thrown to the floor side by side when it finally calmed down.
"Blimey!" Hazel laughed.
"You're telling me!" the Hunter agreed, still smiling from her adrenaline high. "Are you all right?" she asked, standing up and holding out a hand to help Hazel do so to.
The younger girl accepted. "Yeah, I think so. Nothing broken. Did we make it? Where are we?"
"We did it," the Hunter confirmed, checking the view outside on a monitor. "Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860."
"That's so weird," Hazel breathed. "It's Christmas."
The Hunter smiled. "All yours, Haze."
"But it's like... Think about it. Christmas, 1860. Happens once, just one, and then it's gone, it's finished, it'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago," Hazel sighed. "No wonder you never stay still."
"Not a bad life," the Hunter shrugged.
"Better with two," Hazel smirked, turning to walk to the doors. "Come on, then."
"Hey, hey, hey, where are you going?"
She frowned. "1860."
The Hunter looked her up and down and raised her eyebrows. "Go out there dressed like that, you'll start a riot, Barbarella. There's a wardrobe through there. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left." At Hazel's bewildered look, she grinned. "Off you pop!"
***
While Hazel made her way through the TARDIS to the wardrobe, the Hunter took a different corridor to her bedroom. There, she changed into a simple black button up and grey trousers, with a tan trenchcoat and a grey beanie for warmth. Then, after smiling at a framed picture of the Doctor, she went back to the console room to start fiddling with the circuits for the light bulb on top of the TARDIS. She made to get up when she heard footsteps, but banged her head on the underside of the console.
"Ow!" Hazel laughed as the Time Lady got up, rubbing her forehead. "Blimey," the Hunter admired, looking over Hazel's nineteenth century attire.
"Don't laugh," Hazel said shyly, still smirking.
"No, you look beautiful, considering," the Hunter assured her.
Hazel raised her eyebrows. "Considering what?"
The Hunter shrugged, winking. "That you're human."
"I think that's a compliment," Hazel muttered, rolling her eyes. "Aren't you going to cause a riot, wearing trousers, and a hat like that?"
"Well, a bit of chaos never harmed anyone. Besides, I said you'd start a riot, not me." The Hunter brushed her coat down, stepping forwards. "Come on."
Hazel held up a hand to stop her. "You stay there. You've done this before. This is mine." She opened the door, stepping out into the snow gingerly.
The Time Lady followed, locking the door and putting her hands in her pockets. "Brr. Ready for this?" she asked, looking around. "History."
***
Hazel was listening to the carol singers happily while the Hunter bought a newspaper. The woman walked over to her, wincing a bit. "I got the flight a bit wrong," she admitted.
"I don't care," Hazel shrugged, enjoying the Christmas vibes.
"It's not 1860, it's 1869," the Hunter reported.
"I don't care."
"And it's not Naples."
"I don't care."
The Hunter eyed Hazel's expression as she spoke. "How do we feel about Cardiff?"
The girl's smile dropped, before she raised her eyebrows. "Right," she sighed.
Both of them looked round when they heard screams coming from a nearby theatre. The Hunter's face split into an excited grin. "That's more like it!" She ran off, and Hazel followed, holding her skirts up so she wouldn't trip.
***
"Fantastic," the Hunter nodded as she saw a blue gas-like creature floating around the ceiling in the theatre. A lone woman was standing with her mouth wide open while the rest of the crowd fled, but she soon collapsed as the Time Lady made her way up to the man on stage. "Did you see where it came from?"
"Ah, the wag reveals herself, does she? I trust you're satisfied, miss!" the man snapped. The Hunter blinked, affronted.
Hazel gasped as a man and his serving-girl picked up the woman's body, carrying her out. "Oi! Leave her alone!" she yelled, to no avail. "Art, I'll get them."
The Hunter nodded. "Be careful!" She watched the girl run out before turning back to the man. "Did it say anything? Can it speak? I'm the Hunter, by the way."
The man looked her over. "Hunter? You look more like a navvie."
"What's wrong with this hat?" the Hunter frowned.
***
"What are you doing?!" Hazel demanded as she caught up with the serving-girl as she was about to close the doors on a carriage with the woman lying inside.
"Oh, it's a tragedy, miss," the girl made up. "Don't worry yourself. Me and the master will deal with it. The fact is, this poor lady's been taken with the brain fever, and we have to get her to the infirmary."
Hazel touched the woman's wrist, and flinched. "She's bloody freezing. She's dead! Oh my God, what'd you do to her?" She yelped as the man snuck up behind her and put a cloth over her mouth, holding it there until she passed out.
***
The Hunter watched as the blue entity disappeared into a gas light. "Gas!" she realised. "It's made of gas." She ran outside, closely followed by the stage man, and was shocked to find no sign of her companion. "Hazel!"
"You're not escaping me, miss!" the man stated, tapping her on the shoulder. "What do you know about that hobgoblin, hmm? Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?"
"Yeah, mate, not now, thanks," the Hunter dismissed, seeing a hearse being driven away from the theatre. She jumped into a nearby carriage "Oi, you! Follow that hearse!"
"I can't do that, ma'am," the driver said apologetically.
"Why not?" she frowned, narrowing her eyes.
"I'll tell you why not," the man from the stage fumed. "I'll give you a very good reason why not. because this is my coach."
The Hunter rolled her eyes, pulling him in. "Well, get in, then! Move!" The driver cracked the whip, and the carriage started moving. "Come on, you're losing them."
"Everything in order, Mr Dickens?" the driver called down. The Hunter froze, her eyes widening.
"No! It is not!" Dickens snapped.
"What did he say?" the Hunter asked.
"Let me say this first," Dickens requested. "I'm not without a sense of humour."
"Dickens?" the Hunter interrupted.
"Yes."
"Charles Dickens?"
"Yes," the man himself confirmed.
"The Charles Dickens?"
"Should I remove the lady, sir?" the driver called.
The Hunter smiled in awe. "Charles Dickens? You're brilliant. Completely one hundred percent brilliant. I've read them all. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and what's that other one, the one with the ghost?"
"A Christmas Carol?" Dickens guessed.
"No, no, no, the one with the trains. The Signal Man, that's it. Terrifying!" the Hunter enthused. "The best short story ever written. You're a genius!"
"You want me to get rid of her, sir?"
Dickens eyed the Hunter's excited face. "Er, no, I think she can stay."
"Honestly, Charles. Can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan."
"A what? A big what?" Dickens asked, frowning.
"Fan. Number one fan, that's me," the Hunter repeated
"How exactly are you a fan?" Dickens questioned. "In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?"
The Hunter shook her head. "No, it means fanatic, devoted to, but forget about that." She banged on the roof. "Come on, faster!"
"Who exactly is in that hearse?" Dickens wondered.
"My friend. She's only twenty," the Hunter stated, looking down. "It's my fault. She's in my care, and now she's in danger."
Dickens' eyes widened. "Why are we wasting time talking about dry old books? This is much more important. Driver, be swift! The chase is on!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Attaboy, Charlie," the Hunter patted his shoulder anxiously.
He frowned. "Nobody calls me Charlie."
She winked. "All the other ladies do."
***
Hazel woke up, sitting up groggily to find she had been lying in a coffin. She yelped, jumping out, and saw a young man sitting on the next table. "Are  you all right?" she asked. he looked up at her, and she realised he was dead.
***
The Hunter hammered on the door to the undertaker's, standing on the porch with Charles. A young serving-girl answered the door. "I'm sorry, ma'am, sir. We're closed."
"Nonsense," Dickens declared. "Since when did an undertaker keep office hours? The dead don't die on schedule. I demand to see your master."
"He's not in, sir," the girl tried.
"Don't lie to me, child. Summon him at once," Dickens ordered.
"I'm awfully sorry, Mr Dickens, but the master's indisposed." Behind her, a gas lamp flared, not going unnoticed by the pair at the door.
"Having trouble with your gas?" the Hunter asked, before pushing past the maid.
"What the Shakespeare is going on?" Dickens wondered.
***
"You have got to be kidding," Hazel muttered, as the corpse climbed out of its coffin and started shuffling towards her. "Okay, that'll be a no." She ran for the door. "Let me out! Open the door!"
***
"You're not allowed inside, ma'am," the maid tried, to no avail.
"There's something inside the walls," the Hunter mused, pressing her ear up against the plaster. "In the gas pipes. Something's living inside the gas." She looked up as she heard a familiar shout. "That's her!"
"Please, please, let me out!" Hazel cried. The Hunter followed her voice, running into the undertaker, Mr Sneed, as she went.
"How dare you!" Sneed gasped. "This is my house!"
"Shut up," Dickens told him shortly.
Sneed turned to his maid. "Gwyneth, I told you!"
The Hunter kicked the right door in just as the corpse grabbed Hazel, flanked by the old woman's body. "Actually, I think this is my dance," she decided, pulling Hazel out to hold her outside the door, not taking her eyes off the corpses.
"It's a prank," Dickens reasoned. "It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence."
"No, we're not. The dead are walking," the Hunter told him brusquely. She glanced over at Hazel, who was clutching onto her, breathing heavily, and flashed a small smile, rubbing her arm a little. "Hi."
"Hi," Hazel smiled. "Who's your friend?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the writer.
"Charles Dickens," the Hunter stated.
Hazel's eyes widened. "Okay."
The Hunter turned back to the corpses. "My name is the Hunter. Who are you? What do you want?"
The pair replied with multiple child-like voices at once. "Failing. Open the rift. We're dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us." They then screamed, the gas leaving the bodies to return to a gas lamp as the corpses collapsed.
***
Awhile later, the Hunter was watching with amusement as Hazel chewed out Mr Sneed in front of Charles Dickens, Gwyneth pouring out some refreshments for them all. "First of all you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don't think I didn't feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man."
"I won't be spoken to like this!" Sneed protested.
The Hunter rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut it!"
"Then you stick me in a room full of zombies!" Hazel continued. "And as if that ain't enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!"
"It's not my fault," Sneed sighed. "It's always had a reputation. Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs -" Dickens glared at him. "The, er, the dear departed started getting restless."
"Tommyrot," Dickens snorted.
Sneed shook his head. "You witnessed it. Can't keep the beggars down, sir. They walk. And it's the queerest thing, but they hang on to scraps."
Gwyneth handed the Hunter her cup. "White coffee, ma'am, just how you like it." The Hunter smiled politely, then frowned as Gwyneth moved away. How had the maid known she didn't have sugar? And how had she known to do coffee when she gave everyone else tea?
"One old fellow who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service," Sneed continued. "Just like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned."
"Morbid fancy," Dickens scoffed.
The Hunter rolled her eyes. "Oh, Charles, you were there."
"I saw nothing but an illusion," Dickens maintained.
"If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time, just shut up," the Hunter cut him off bluntly, before turning to Sneed. "What about the gas?"
"That's new, miss. Never seen anything like that," Sneed told her.
"That means it's getting stronger," the Hunter realised. "The rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through."
Hazel frowned. "What's the rift?"
"A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another," the Hunter explained. "That'll be the cause of ghost stories, most of the time."
Sneed nodded. "That's how I got the house so cheap. Stories going back generations." Dickens slammed the door as he left, and the Hunter rolled her eyes again. "Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine."
***
The Hunter watched from the doorway of the Chapel of Rest as Dickens searched the dead man's coffin. "Checking for strings?" she asked, walking closer.
Dickens jumped. "Wires, perhaps. There must be some mechanism behind this fraud."
"Come on, Charles." The Hunter sighed. "All right, so I shouldn't have told you to shut up. I'm sorry. But you've got one of the best minds in the world. You saw those gas creatures."
"I cannot accept that," the writer shook his head.
The Hunter arched an eyebrow, nodding at the corpse they stood next to. "And what does the human body do when it decomposes? It breaks down and produces gas. It's the perfect home for these gas things. They can slip inside and use it as a vehicle, just like your driver and his coach."
"Stop it!" Dickens pleaded, then sighed, replacing the coffin lid. "Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?"
"Not wrong," the Hunter assured him. "There's just more to learn."
Dickens shook his head. "I've always railed against the fantasists. Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them but that's exactly what they were: illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that. Injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o'-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Hunter? Has it all been for nothing?"
The Hunter regarded him with a small, but genuine smile. "I don't think anyone could call what you've done a waste."
***
Gwyneth gasped as Hazel stated washing up in the pantry. "Please, miss, you shouldn't be helping. It's not right."
Hazel scoffed. "Don't be daft. Sneed works you to death. How much do you get paid?"
"Eight pound a year, ma'am," Gwyneth replied dutifully.
"How much?" Hazel gaped.
"I know," Gwyneth smiled. "I would've been happy with six."
"So, did you go to school or what?" Hazel asked, unsure of how things worked in the nineteenth century.
Gwyneth looked shocked. "Of course I did! What do you think I am, an urchin? I went every Sunday, nice and proper."
"What, once a week?" Hazel frowned.
"We did sums and everything," Gwyneth nodded, before looking left and right furtively. "To be honest, I hated every second."
Hazel snorted. "Oh, me too."
"Don't tell anyone, but one week, I didn't go, and ran on the heath all on my own," Gwyneth confessed, giggling.
"I did plenty of that," Hazel smiled. "I used to go down the shops with my mates. We used to go and check out the goods, if you know what I mean." She winked.
Apparently she did, because Gwyneth blushed. "Well, I don't know much about that, miss."
Hazel raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Come on, times haven't changed that much. I bet you've done the same."
"I don't think so, miss."
"Gwyneth, you can tell me," Hazel grinned. "I bet you've got your eye on someone."
Gwyneth allowed herself a small smile. "I suppose there is one lad. The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him."
"I like a nice smile. Good smile, nice bum," Hazel nodded.
"Well, I have never heard the like."
"Ask him out," Hazel suggested. "Give him a cup of tea or something, that's a start."
The maid looked at her oddly. "I swear it is the strangest thing, miss. You've got all the clothes and the breeding, but you talk like some sort of wild thing."
"Well, maybe I am," Hazel shrugged. "Maybe that's a good thing. You need a bit more in your life than Mr Sneed."
Gwyneth frowned. "Oh, now that's not fair. He's not so bad, old Sneed. He was very kind to me to take me in because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve."
Hazel blanched, her breath catching in her throat. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"Thank you, miss," Gwyneth nodded. "But I'll be with them again, one day, sitting with them in paradise. I shall be so blessed. They're waiting for me. Maybe your mum and dad are up there waiting for you too, miss."
"Who told you they were dead?" Hazel asked quietly, looking haunted.
"I don't know," Gwyneth lied. "Must have been the Hunter."
"My parents died years back," Hazel sighed, shaking her head.
"But you've been thinking about them lately more than ever," Gwyneth stated, not making eye contact.
"I guess." Hazel frowned. "How do you know all this?"
"Mr Sneed says I think too much," Gwyneth said quickly. "I'm all alone down here. I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you, miss?"
Hazel was somewhat dazed, half caught up in memories of her parents, back when they were still parents. "No, no servants where I'm from."
"And you've come such a long way," Gwyneth said, looking at her strangely.
"What makes you think so?" Hazel wondered.
"You're from London," Gwyneth murmured. "I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky - no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying." She fixed her gaze on Hazel, whose eyes widened. "And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness, the big Bad Wolf." Gwyneth caught herself. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, miss!"
Hazel hushed her, thinking over what she'd said. "It's all right."
"I can't help it," Gwyneth cried. "Ever since I was a little girl, my mam said I had the sight. She told me to hide it."
"But it's getting stronger, more powerful, is that right?" Both girls turned to see the Hunter leaning in the doorway, frowning a little.
"All the time, miss," Gwyneth nodded. "Every night, voices in my head."
"You grew up on top of the rift. You're part of it," the Hunter realised. "You're the key."
"I've tried to make sense of it, miss. Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts," Gwyneth assured her.
The Hunter nodded appraisingly. "Well, that should help. You can show us what to do."
Gwyneth frowned, glancing at Hazel nervously. "What to do where, miss?"
Hazel nodded, taking a deep breath, before joining her at the door. "I'm fine."
***
Everyone had gathered around a circular table in the dining room, and mostly everyone was seated. "This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists, down in big town," Gwyneth declared. "Come, we must all join hands." She took the Hunter and Sneed's hands, while Hazel took the Hunter's right hand.
Dickens, on the other hand, was refusing to sit down. "I can't take part in this," he shook his head defiantly.
The Hunter rolled her eyes impatiently. "Humbug?" she asked, mocking him. "Come on, open mind."
"Charles," the Hunter raised an eyebrow sternly. "Sit. We might need you." The man did as ordered, joining hands with Hazel and Sneed. "Good man." She turned to the maid. "Now, Gwyneth, reach out."
Gwyneth closed her eyes. "Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits, come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden."
Hazel looked around, her eyes wide, as a whispering filled the room. "Can you hear that?"
"Nothing can happen," Dickens maintained. "This is sheer folly."
"Look at her!" Hazel was watching Gwyneth as gas tendrils floated around behind her, rising to circle around above their heads.
"I see them. I feel them," she murmured.
"What's it saying?" Hazel asked, looking to the Hunter, who was watching the gas with narrowed eyes - the way she usually looked when she was concentrating on something.
"They can't get through the rift," the Time Lady translated, glancing back to the maid. "Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it. Look deep. Allow them through."
"I can't!" Gwyneth protested.
The Hunter squeezed her hand. "Yes, you can. Just believe it. Make the link. I have faith in you, Gwyneth."
"Yes," Gwyneth whispered as bluish outlines of people appeared behind her.
"Great God!" Sneed exclaimed. "Spirits from the other side."
"The other side of the universe," the Hunter corrected, raising an eyebrow coolly.
The figures spoke with child-like voices again, and this time, Gwyneth spoke with them. "Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us."
"What do you want us to do?" the Hunter demanded, eyeing them carefully.
"The rift," the Gelth replied. "Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."
The Hunter narrowed her eyes even further. "What for?"
"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction."
"Why?" the Time Lady questioned. "What happened?"
"Once we had a physical form like you, but then the war came." The Hunter blanched, and Hazel squeezed her hand tight, brushing her thumb over it the way Jason had used to do when she was younger.
"War?" Dickens repeated. "What war?" Â
"The Time War. The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged. Invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state."
When the Hunter spoke, it was with a harder voice than usual. "So that's why you need the corpses."
"We want to stand tall, to feel the sunlight, to live again. We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They're going to waste. Give them to us."
"But we can't," Hazel protested. "It's not right."
The Hunter winced. "It could save their lives."
"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth." The apparitions flew back into the gas lamps, and Gwyneth fell face down on the table.
Hazel ran round to check on her as the Hunter helped her sit back up. "Gwyneth? Are you okay?"
"All true," Dickens muttered, shaking his head. "It's all true."
***
A little later, Gwyneth woke up from where she had been laid on the chaise longue. Hazel smiled down at her. "It's all right. You just sleep."
"But my angels, miss. They came, didn't they?" Gwyneth asked. "They need me?"
The Hunter tilted her head, standing next to them. "Well, you're their only chance of survival."
Hazel shot her a look. "I've told you, leave her alone. She's exhausted." The Hunter raised her hands in surrender and backed away, smirking. "Drink this." Gwyneth sat up to drink the glass of water Hazel handed her.
Sitting in his armchair across the room, Sneed frowned. "Well, what did you say, Hunter? Explain it again. What are they?"
"Aliens," the Hunter replied shortly, taking a seat and crossing her legs.
"Like foreigners, you mean?" Sneed assumed.
"Pretty foreign, yeah," the Hunter allowed, pointing to the ceiling. "From up there."
"Brecon?" Sneed guessed.
The Hunter raised her eyebrows at Hazel before looking back to the man. "Close. And they've been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff, but the road's blocked. Only a few can get through, and even then they're weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas form and hide in the pipes," she explained.
Dickens nodded. "Which is why they need the girl."
Hazel scowled at him. "They're not having her."
"She can help," the Hunter sighed, making a face. "Living on the rift, she's become part of it. She can open it up, make a bridge, and let them through."
"Incredible," Dickens breathed. "Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world, who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."
"It's a solid system, I'll give them that," the Hunter evaluated.
"You can't let them run around inside of dead people," Hazel exclaimed, gaping at her.
"I wasn't planning on it," the Hunter assured her. "I couldn't give up a corpse if it were that of one of my own people. I can't ask you to do so either." Hazel's gaze softened.
"Don't I get a say, miss?" Gwyneth piped up.
Hazel glanced at her impatiently. "Look, you don't understand what's going on."
Gwyneth sighed. "You would say that, miss, because that's very clear inside your head, that you think I'm stupid."
"That's not true!" Hazel protested.
"Things might be very different where you're from, but here and now, I know my own mind, and the angels need me," Gwyneth told her, before looking to the ginger. "Hunter, what do I have to do?"
"You don't have to do anything," the Hunter told her.
"They've been singing to me since I was a child, sent by my mam on a holy mission," Gwyneth snapped. "So tell me."
The Hunter closed her eyes for a second, rubbing her forehead, before opening them and sighing. "We need to find the rift. This house is on a weak spot, but there must be a spot that's weaker than any other. Mr Sneed, what's the weakest part of this house? The place where most of the ghosts have been seen?"
"That would be the morgue," Sneed replied dutifully.
Hazel rolled her eyes. "Couldn't you have said gazebo?"
***
The Hunter pulled her coat tighter around her as she looked at the corpses under sheets in the morgue. "Brr. Talk about Bleak House."
Hazel frowned, keeping close to her. "The thing is, Hunter, the Gelth don't succeed, cause I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869."
"Time's in flux, changing every second. Your cosy little world can be rewritten like that." The Hunter snapped her fingers. "Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing."
Dickens shivered. "Hunter, I think the room is getting colder."
"Here they come," Hazel muttered.
The Gelth's blue form slipped out of a gas lamp by the door and flew over to hover under a stone archway. "You've come to help. Praise the Hunter. Praise her."
"Promise you won't hurt her," Hazel said as Gwyneth stepped forwards a little.
"Hurry! Please, so little time. Pity the Gelth."
The Hunter narrowed her eyes at the apparition. "I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, all right?"
Gwyneth sighed happily. "My angels. I can help them live."
"Okay, where's the weak point?" the Hunter questioned.
"Here, beneath the arch," the Gelth replied.
"Beneath the arch," Gwyneth repeated, going and standing where the apparition hovered.
"You don't have to do this," Hazel reminded her.
"My angels."
"Establish the bridge. Reach out to the void. Let us through!"
"Yes, I can see you!" Gwyneth smiled. "I can see you. Come!"
"Bridgehead establishing."
"Come to me," Gwyneth called. "Come to this world, poor lost souls!"
"It is begun. The bridge is made." Gwyneth opened her mouth, and blue gas tendrils floated out. "She has given herself to the Gelth. The bridge is open. We descend." The calm, blue apparition morphed, turning into a fiery red thing with teeth as sharp as knives. It's voice deepened and hardened, sounding much more forceful. "The Gelth will come through in force."
"You said that you were few in number," Dickens spluttered.
"A few billion," the Gelth corrected. "And all of us in need of corpses."
The bodies stood up, their white sheets falling to the ground, and they started moving towards the humans and the Hunter.
"Gwyneth, stop this. Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you -!"
"Mr Sneed, get back!" Hazel yelled, her eyes wide as a corpse snapped his neck from behind. A Gelth zoomed into his mouth, and he turned to face them.
The Hunter cursed, grabbing Hazel's arm and pulling her back with her. "I have joined the legions of the Gelth," Sneed hissed. "Come, march with us."
"No," Dickens declined politely, backing away towards the entrance to the morgue.
"We need bodies. All of you, dead. The human race, dead."
"Gwyneth, stop them!" the Hunter ordered. "Send them back now!"
"Three more bodies. Convert them. Make them vessels for the Gelth."
Sneed back the Hunter and Hazel up against a metal gate, pressing ever closer. "Hunter, I can't!" Dickens exclaimed apologetically. "I'm sorry. This new world of yours is too much for me. I'm so-"
The Hunter ignored him, opening the gate and pushing Hazel through, closing it when she herself had gone through too. She locked it with her sonic screwdriver, so the corpses couldn't reach them.
"Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth."
"I trusted you," the Hunter shouted. "I pitied you!"
"We don't want your pity. We want this world and all its flesh."
"Not while I'm alive," the Hunter declared bravely, glaring at the corpses.
One of them seemed to smile. "Then live no more."
"But I can't die!" Hazel protested. "Tell me I can't. I haven't even been born yet. It's impossible for me to die. Isn't it?"
The Hunter refused to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"But it's 1869," Hazel reasoned. "How can I die now?"
"Time isn't a straight line," the Hunter replied quickly. "It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the twentieth century and die in the nineteenth, and it's all my fault! I brought you here!"
Hazel shook her head. "It's not your fault. I wanted to come."
"What about me? I saw the fall of Troy, World War Five, I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. My brother and I inspired an entire civilisation, and now I'm going to die in a dungeon. In Cardiff." The Hunter looked disgusted.
"It's not just dying," Hazel reminded her. "We'll become one of them." She sighed. "We'll go down fighting, yeah?"
"Yeah," the Hunter agreed.
"Together?"
"Yes." She took Hazel's hand, and the girl squeezed tight. "I'm so glad I met you."
"Me too," Hazel admitted.
They were interrupted when Dickens ran in, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. "Hunter! Hunter! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! now, fill the room, all of it, now!"
"What're you doing?" the Time Lady demanded.
"Turn it all on," Dickens repeated. "Flood the place!"
The Hunter's eyes widened. "Brilliant. Gas."
Hazel looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Are you crazy? We'll choke to death!"
"Am I correct, Hunter? These creatures are gaseous," Dickens stated.
"Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!" the Hunter agreed.
Dickens blanched as the corpses gave up on the Hunter and Rose and started shambling towards him. "I hope, oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately."
"Plenty more!" The Hunter made a swiping motion with her left hand, and a gas pipe ripped itself from the wall, causing the Gelth to leave the corpses, floating around the ceiling angrily.
"It's working," Dickens realised.
The Hunter opened the gate, and she and Hazel walked towards Dickens and Gwyneth. "Gwyneth, send them back. They lied. They're not angels."
"Liars?" Gwyneth inquired.
"Look at me. If your mother and father could look down and see this, they'd tell you the same. they'd give you the strength. Now send them back!" the Hunter ordered.
"I can't breathe," Hazel muttered, holding a hand to her chest.
"Charles, get her out," the Hunter requested immediately.
"I'm not leaving her," Hazel protested.
"They're too strong," Gwyneth whispered, sounding strained.
The Hunter looked at her imploringly. "Remember that world you saw? Hazel's world? All those people. None of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift."
Gwyneth shook her head. "I can't send them back. But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." She pulled a matchbox from her apron pocket.
"You can't!" Hazel cried, her eyes widening.
"Leave this place!" Gwyneth cried.
"Hazel, get out," the Hunter ordered, squeezing the girl's hand before letting go. "Go no. I won't leave her while she's still in danger. Now go!" Hazel nodded shakily, before leaving with Dickens. "Come on, leave that to me," she told Gwyneth. When the girl didn't move, she frowned, feeling for a pulse in the human's neck. "I'm sorry," the Hunter sighed, kissing Gwyneth's forehead. "Thank you." Then the Hunter ran for her life, just about managing to reach the street before the house exploded. The force of it sent her flying into the snow, and she groaned, before getting to her feet and walking over to Dickens and Hazel.
"She didn't make it," Hazel sighed. Â
"I'm sorry," the Hunter muttered, rubbing her ribs. "She closed the rift."
"At such a cost. The poor child," Dickens frowned.
The Hunter put her arm round Hazel's shoulders as they started walking. "I did try, Haze, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."
Hazel frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch," the Hunter told her.
"But she can't have," Hazel reasoned. "She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?"
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Dickens mused. "Even for you, Hunter."
Hazel glanced back over her shoulder at the ruins of the house. "She saved the world. A servant girl. No one will ever know."
***
The Hunter sighed as they reached the TARDIS and she grabbed her key out of her pocket. "Right then, Charlie boy, I've just got to go into my, uh, shed. Won't be long."
"What are you going to do now?" Hazel inquired.
"I shall take the mail coach back to London, quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them," Dickens smiled. "After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."
"You've cheered up," the Hunter noticed.
"Exceedingly," Dickens agreed. "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I've only just started. All these huge and wonderful notions, Hunter. I'm inspired. I must write about them."
"Do you think that's wise?" Hazel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I shall be subtle at first," Dickens assured her. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks a ending. Perhaps the killer was not the boy's uncle. Perhaps he was not of this Earth. The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals. I can spread the word, tell the truth."
"Good luck with it," the Hunter smiled. "Nice to meet you. Fantastic."
"Bye then, and thanks." Hazel shook his hand, then kissed his cheek.
"Oh my dear. How modern." Dickens frowned. "Thank you, but, I don't understand. In what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?"
The Hunter smirked. "You'll see. In the shed."
Dickens sighed. "Upon my soul, Hunter, it's one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this. Who are you?"
"Just a friend passing through."
"But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask. My books, Hunter, do they last?" Dickens wondered.
"Oh yes!" the Hunter assured him.
"For how long?"
The Hunter smiled. "Forever. Right, shed. Come on, Haze."
"In the box?" Dickens asked. "Both of you?"
"Down boy," the Hunter winked. "See you." The girls entered the TARDIS.
Hazel frowned, closing the door behind her. "Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?"
"In a week's time it's 1870, and that's the year he dies. Sorry," the Hunter stated, draping her trenchcoat over one of the weirdly shaped coral columns. "He'll never get to tell his story."
"Oh no. He was so nice," Hazel mourned.
The Hunter smiled at her. "But in your time, he was already dead. We've brought him back to life, and right now, he's more alive than he's ever been, old Charlie boy. Let's give him one last surprise." She threw the lever for dematerialisation, and the girls watched on the monitor as Charles Dickens' face split into an ecstatic grin.
Hazel threw her arms around the Time Lady. "Merry Christmas, Art.
"Merry Christmas, Haze," the Hunter returned, smiling happily. "And may we have many, many more."
~~~
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Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
"These are amazing," the Hunter realised, biting into a chip from her tray as the girls found a place to sit.
"I know, right!" Hazel agreed, grinning, her brown eyes flashing in delight.
The Hunter eyed her for a second as she dug into her tray. "What did Cassandra mean?" Hazel looked up at her, confused. "When you said about the deaths, and she said something about your past. What was that about?"
Hazel sighed, putting the chip she'd been about to eat back in her tray. "I don't know how she found out about it," she muttered, looking down.
"Found out about what?" the Hunter asked, frowning.
"My mum died when I was four," Hazel replied bluntly. "I didn't really know her, but my dad was so lost without her. He started drinking and taking drugs to... I don't know, to take his mind off it? But the drink and the drugs, they changed him. They made him angrier, more violent. He started lashing out when I was... twelve, thirteen years old." She shook her head, blinking back tears, and the Hunter put her arm around her shoulders hesitantly. "It wasn't till I was fifteen I started hitting back. And then, a year or so later, I was trying to protect myself and he..." Hazel wiped her cheeks, sniffing. "He hit his head and passed out, and didn't wake up again... I didn't know what to do, so I just packed a bag and I ran. I met Jace a few days later when I was hiding out near the London Eye. He helped me out. He gave me some money to get coloured contacts, and I stopped dying my hair, and I took on his surname. Now only he knows I was Hazel Richards."
"I'm sorry," the Hunter whispered, unable to think of such a thing happening back on Gallifrey. Families had been so tightly knit there that hurting your daughter was unimaginable. "So what colour are your eyes really?"
Hazel blinked, looking at the woman. "They're... they're hazel. That's why they named me what they did." She watched the Time Lady as she ate. "So what about you? What were your family like?"
The Hunter looked down. "My mum and dad were pretty normal. They had miles of estate near Arcadia, the first city. My twin brother was called Apollo, but he chose the Doctor. It was funny at the time. He was always good at healing, and I was better at fighting, especially with a bow. The Hunter and the Doctor, Artemis and Apollo. We travelled together before the war. One time we landed in ancient Greece, and saved them from a giant creature from the Andromeda galaxy. The people wrote stories about us, which is where the god and goddess mythology started. Soon they had created an entire pantheon of deities. But that was before the war. Apollo and I were on the front lines, him as a medic, myself as a warrior. We watched as our house went up in flames, as the war ravaged our land. Mum and Dad were fighting too. Their battalion went down in the heart of Arcadia, and they didn't get out. We lasted longer. My brother took a hit right beside me..."
***
"Artemis!" Â The Time Lady whipped around as her brother called out for her, and took in the blood he lay in. She shot down the Daleks that surrounded them and rushed to his side, putting her bow down to cradle him in her lap.
"Apollo," she whispered, her tears falling into the grime on his face and clearing little trails on his cheeks, much like the blood pouring from the wound in his chest.
The Doctor groaned as something exploded around the corner, the shockwave jolting him. "Artie," he murmured. "I'm so sorry."
"Shh, it's okay. It's okay. Regenerate," the Hunter ordered, swallowing.
"Artie, I don't think I can," the Doctor told her. "I think this is it."
The Hunter stared at him in shock. "No. No, no, no, it can't be! It can't! You can't leave me." The Doctor's own tears started falling at the prospect, and she took a shaky breath. "It's you and me against the universe, remember? We're twins. I'm not leaving you behind, Apollo. I promised Mum I'd keep you safe."
"You know, I'm nine minutes older than you," the Doctor reminded her with a smirk, before coughing. Blood stained his hand as he took it away from his mouth, and he whimpered a little. "Artie, I'm scared."
"Shh," the Hunter whispered, moving his hair away from his face as she sniffed, trying to swallow back her fear. "It's gonna be all right. You're gonna be fine." Â She placed her palm against his wound, trying to heal it, but it was no use. The Doctor had always been the better healer.
"I'm so scared," he repeated, his eyes losing focus as they darted about all over the place. "I'm so scared." He felt for her hand and took it, squeezing tight despite the blood that coated her palm. "Artemis, I..." He took a shuddering breath. "I don't wanna go." Â His eyes grew still, and the Hunter's breath hitched in her throat.
"Apollo? Apollo, please, please look at me," she begged, holding his hand tighter than ever before. "Apollo!" She looked over his body, searching for a golden glow, but there was no sign of regeneration. "Apollo!" She screamed in rage and pain. "This war has taken too much. No more," Â she decreed, making a decision.
The Hunter picked up the Doctor and carried him away from the wreckage to her TARDIS, ignoring the fight around her. She had a job to do, and nobody was going to stop her.
***
The Hunter swallowed, glad to feel Hazel's warmth beside her rather than being alone again. "I took, uh... There was this weapon called the Moment. I took it from the vaults and I used it to time lock the war, destroying Gallifrey and everyone on it." She wiped the tears from her cheeks impatiently. "I may have ended the Time War, but nobody won it."
Hazel hugged the Hunter, who froze for a moment before raising her arms to wrap them around Hazel's back too. She pulled back after a while, and sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. "All right?" Hazel asked, before wincing.
"Yeah," the Hunter gave her a small smile, before nodding. "So, ready for another trip?"
~~~
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