I am really tired and kind of hungry and a bit undercaffeinated. This is going to end well.
Disclaimer: No.
SIAPNIAN: I've been thinking of branching out into TBBT-fic. This intimidates me. –eep-
Non-Warning: Betaed by TheDisturbedPoet. Shocking, I know. (Also, give her a hug—she's awesome, for one, and she made me lengthen this, for another. ^_^)
-BAD WOLF-
I doubt he realises how incredibly stupid he's being. I'll give him some credit; he's stubborn and surprisingly talented in the art of temporal manipulation (even considering his species), but that doesn't mean he's not an idiot. In this case, it actually means he's being even more of one than he could have otherwise…
At this point, I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I'm really not. You know how he is when he doesn't get his way. Just because you're half a millennium old doesn't mean that you're mature.
It's just… It isn't fair. I had all of this planned out. It was perfect and simple and would have left everyone happy, and now he's going around messing that up and absolutely refusing to admit that maybe, maybe it might be better if he stopped fighting.
But he's still the Doctor, and he doesn't give up. Which is all lovely and inspirational when it isn't ruining my plans.
My.
…perhaps if he knew exactly what he was fighting, and that I really do know what's best for both of them… Well. What's best for her, anyway. I'm beginning to wonder if he even deserves me being nice and giving him another companion.
But still. He doesn't know who I am, but Rose does. And if she knows I'm behind this… hmm. She took my name as a sign that she could return to her Doctor once before—maybe it'll work again.
It deserves some thought, at least. And I'd rather take a chance on her figuring out what's going on than him.
She'll listen to me. She always does. …usually.
-BAD WOLF-
"What's wrong with her?"
The Doctor turned to look at his companion, befuddled. This was, he noted with a slight measure of sullenness, not unusual nowadays; it seemed that every word that came out of Rose's mouth either delighted or confused him. The mood whiplash was going to kill him one day, he was sure of it.
Still, it was better than not having her around at all.
"What's wrong with who?" he asked.
She nodded towards the console. "The TARDIS," she said. "She doesn't sound right."
He forgot, sometimes, how much she knew about him—and, by extension, his ship. But it wasn't as if the old girl was sick, not blatantly so; certainly not enough for a normal human to pick up on… but since when was Rose ever normal?
Maybe this wasn't just her previous escapades with sort-of him. He'd had people who travelled with him for years and couldn't detect a deviation half as faint as the one she had heard. Someday, he'd have to find out about that…
But not today. He circled the console, flipping switches, looking impressive. "Partially a couple of errors in the Vortex," he said. "Always makes her a bit queasy. Also, we haven't passed by a rift in a while."
She swallowed, staring wide-eyed up at him. "Errors? Like… the ones I've been making?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "You're hardly the only thing that's going wrong with Time, Rose."
"Well, yeah, but…"
"Point is," he interrupted, wanting to snap her out of her brief melancholy, "she's desperately in need of a… refuelling, I suppose you could call it."
"Cardiff?" she asked, brightening somewhat.
He grinned. "Oh," he said, "if you insist."
-BAD WOLF-
There was movement.
Not that anyone saw it—that would have destroyed the entire point—but, still. Shadows shifted crazily over the walls for a half-moment, the faint rustle of feathers over brickwork.
A pigeon, unexpectedly roused from its sleep, turned its head in exactly the wrong direction and the motion stopped as abruptly as if it had never been. But, the bird noted with no shortage of confusion, surely it had been on the other side of the…?
Oh well. Stranger things had happened. It tucked its head under its wing and promptly forgot about it.
The movement continued, unhindered, searching. It was easier at night; there was less prey, of course, but that wasn't exactly a bad thing. It could not, could not be seen. Everything would come crashing down and it would starve, slowly, paralysed to the last.
Not here, though. Here, only a select few knew what it was. Here, practically no one knew that it should be fought, let alone how to go about it.
Cemeteries, it had learned, were particularly useful—but it couldn't stay in any particular place for very long, or one of the aforementioned very few people might notice. It had heard of what had happened to the others.
And so it migrated, the temporal distortions of the Cardiff Rift calling to it. Such a fracture would make disappearances less noticeable, and its influence over the timelines of those around it made for more satisfying sport. Of course, it attracted other abnormalities—abnormalities that might be dangerous even to such a creature as that—, but as long as it didn't stay long, it doubted it would be caught.
There—there was someone, alone, wandering in the dark. He didn't have as much potential as it would have liked, but the Rift had definitely left its mark on him. And so it shifted, stalking him, darting from ledge to ledge to avoid too much suspicion. Identical statues on every other building were distinctly strange, but humans had overlooked odder things.
It sensed that it was about to be noticed and rapidly threw its hands over its face. Froze. Waited. Waited. Waited.
It wouldn't be long. It never was. That night was not an exception.
He blinked. It pounced.
-BAD WOLF-
Insert theme music here!
Bit short—sorry about that… rawrgh. Angst. Is "it's really frelling hard to write from the perspective of an Angel" a valid excuse?