In Bruises and Feathers (1/1)
Title - In Bruises and Feathers (1/1)
Author -
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, Rosalie Cullen
Spoilers - Through the end of S2, and for all of "Breaking Dawn"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - The Doctor and Rose meet Edward and Bella.
Author's Notes - Yes, it's a Chaosverse/"Twilight" crossover. Please blame
rosa_acicularis. And if you really, really love "Twilight," you probably don't want so much to click on the cut.
Many thanks to
jlrpuck for being persuaded to beta this by my stream of e-mails to her.
The gorgeous icon was created by
swankkat for me, commissioned by
jlrpuck for my birthday.
Rose, adjusting Fortuna’s bonnet, glanced up to make sure that the Doctor was watching Brem and Athena. Not that she didn’t trust him to watch the kids-he had, after all, somehow made it safe and sound through a whole five months without her-it was just that sometimes she felt that she just had to make completely sure that the kids were still there. The Doctor was saying, “No, it isn’t Yusde,” to Brem’s question. “It’s just fog.”
“It’s a lot of fog,” said Brem, wrinkling his nose.
“Welllll,” said the Doctor. “It’s the Pacific Northwest.” He turned back to Rose. “Rose!” he shouted. “Leave her bonnet! There isn’t any sun. Come on.”
The Pacific Northwest trip had been the Doctor’s idea. Fishing! He had suddenly decided he wanted to take the kids fishing! Rose could think of nothing more boring, but, of course, the Doctor had made it sound like a marvelous adventure, and now Brem in his jumper and Athena in a sparkly pink get-up that she could not be talked out of were skipping next to their father as they walked toward the end of the dock.
Rose gave up on Fortuna’s bonnet and settled her back in the pram, pushing it down the dock. There was a cluster of incredibly good-looking people off to the side of the dock, all of whom watched her unnecessarily closely as she strode by. Rose, remembering the Family of Blood situation, quickened her pace a little bit.
One, a little girl, pointed at her and said, “But that one doesn’t smell funny.”
“Renesmee,” scolded one of the other people in the cluster.
Rose pushed the pram fasted. Renesmee? Was that another language? Why wasn’t the TARDIS translating?
“Doctor!” she called, anxious that they not be separated.
He turned back toward her, pausing their forward movement, and his eyes slid suddenly over to the cluster of people. He turned abruptly, and shouted, “Brem!” and she realized he’d let Brem run ahead, to examine the barnacles on one of the ropes tethering one of the boats to the dock. “Come here, would you?” he asked, his voice so light and polite that she knew she’d been right to be alarmed. Then he turned and walked toward her, kept one hand in Athena’s and leaned over with the other and picked Fortuna up out of the pram.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said, sunnily, at finding herself in his arms.
“Hello, darling,” he replied, still striving to keep his voice light, while his eyes slid back over to the cluster of people. “They’re watching you,” he murmured, under his breath.
“I know,” she breathed back. “Why?”
“Not…entirely…sure…”
“What’s the plan?”
“TARDIS,” he said. “Brem,” he called, sharply, and she realized Brem had wandered right past them, toward the cluster of good-looking people watching them.
“Who are they?” Rose asked, as Brem halted and tilted his head at them. “They look like a bunch of bloody pagan gods.”
“What’s that even mean?” asked the Doctor. “You’re the one who’s a statue in the British Museum, and don’t you forget it.”
“Dad,” said Brem, having re-joined the group. “Why’re they-”
“I know,” the Doctor cut him off. “We need to get back to the TARDIS.”
Brem huffed exasperatedly. “But we were supposed to go fishing.”
“There are other places in the world to go swimming,” the Doctor told him, “where there aren’t-“
“Excuse me,” said a voice, as lightly and politely as the Doctor had been striving for earlier. One of them had come over to them, all untidy bronze hair and tawny gold eyes. “But what are you?” he inquired.
The Doctor blinked. “What?”
“What are you?” he asked again, and it was clear he meant it.
“What are you?” asked the Doctor, equally politely, but he reached out and took Brem by the shoulder and pushed him behind him in a move that the odd man did not miss.
He smiled. “Let’s not play games. We don’t like unidentified threats.”
“Neither do we,” said the Doctor, with a trace of Oncoming Storm in his voice. “We were just leaving. It’d be smart of you to let us leave.”
“It’d be smart of you to tell us what, exactly, you are.”
“Rose,” said the Doctor, without taking his eyes off the man he was talking to, “why don’t you take the kids and-“ The rest of the good-looking coterie, which had been all in a cluster, were suddenly fanned out over the dock, blocking escape routes. They’d moved in the blink of an eye. The Doctor sighed. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “I really hate doing this nonsense in front of the kids. Here’s your one warning, let us go now, et cetera, et cetera,” he drawled, affecting boredom. He turned to place Fortuna in the pram.
One of the good-looking crowd was suddenly near him, one hand reaching out to intercept the baby, and the Doctor snatched Fortuna back. “You lay on hand on any of my children-”
It was a woman who had reached for Fortuna, a blonde, and she smiled at him. “We’re very difficult to kill.”
“Are you now?” asked the Doctor, and he reached for his sonic screwdriver, flipped it in his hand, and held it up. There was a sudden gleaming burst of sunlight through the fog, which the Doctor had expected to just be enough to singe them a bit, but instead of reacting the way he’d thought, every single one of them burst out into dazzle. The Doctor stared open-mouthed, as the fog rolled back in.
“Oh, Daddy,” exclaimed Athena, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “That was lovely. Do it again!”
“Plasmavores who sparkle?” asked the Doctor, disbelievingly, and turned back to the bronze-haired one. “What kind of rubbish is that?”
“What are they, Doctor?” asked Rose.
“Well, strictly speaking, they ought to be-”
“Vampires!” Brem realized, suddenly. “You’re vampires.”
“But sunlight doesn’t kill you,” said the Doctor. “Welllllll, that’s evolution for you, I suppose. Marvelous thing, really.”
“How’d you know?” asked the bronze-haired one.
“You move quickly. And you knew we weren’t human somehow. Sense of smell. We’ve had a bit of a run-in recently with creatures with advanced senses of smell. It was foremost in my brain that we smell differently. It was an easy link to make.”
“So you know what we are. What are you?”
“Not a threat. We’re leaving now. And, if I were you, I’d not harm any humans you might find around here. That would make me very unhappy.”
“We don’t harm humans.”
“No?” The Doctor lifted his eyebrows. “You’re…enlightened vampires?”
“You could call us that. I’m Edward Cullen.”
“I’m the Doctor-”
“Don’t touch her!” shrieked a voice, and the Doctor turned his head.
Brem had his sonic screwdriver out, scanning the little girl in the group. The woman who had shrieked appeared next to him.
“Oi!” snapped the Doctor. “He’s only scanning her!”
“Leave him, Bella,” said Edward Cullen. “Sorry, she’s…overprotective. You know how it is.” Edward’s eyes drifted to the two daughters the Doctor was still sheltering.
“Yes,” replied the Doctor, briefly. “Brem. Come here and stop causing trouble.”
“You know,” remarked Edward, “I can’t read your thoughts.”
“Tragic, that,” said the Doctor.
“Not any of yours. And that one, at least, is absolutely human.” Edward gestured to Rose.
“Yes. Well. Again, tragic.”
“It doesn’t work, you know,” noted Edward, sadly. “Falling in love with a human. While being an immortal being.”
“I’m not immortal. And I think I pretty much get how it works, thanks very much.”
“No,” said the woman Edward had called Bella. “What will you do?” She looked at Rose. “When you grow old and die while he…doesn’t?”
Rose smiled tightly. “’S a bit of a personal question, isn’t it?”
“I think we might have a lot to talk about,” said Edward Cullen.
Which was how Rose came to find herself sitting at an outdoor café with a teenage vampire named Bella who was watching her while Rose sipped on an iced tea. Athena and Brem were playing with the little vampire girl. The Doctor and Edward were off by the dock still. The Doctor was watching the kids and absently pushing Fortuna’s pram back and forth, while Fortuna watched her brother and sister. Edward was talking to him enthusiastically. The rest of the vampires were in a knot a little way away, talking.
“Your kids are beautiful,” said Bella.
“Thanks,” said Rose. “So’s yours.” She didn’t know why she was stuck in this conversation. What could the Doctor possibly have to talk to Edward Cullen about?
“Having her killed me.”
“Ah, one of those. It was touch-and-go with Fortuna for me. Complicated children, right?”
“Your husband’s features are a bit uneven.”
“They’re what?” Rose blinked.
“Well, for an immortal being. I thought all of them would be perfect. Like Edward.”
“He isn’t immortal, he just lives a long life,” said Rose. “And he is perfect.”
“Does he…bite pillows?”
Rose stared at her. “Does he what?”
“Never mind. And you’re okay with this?”
“With what?”
“Dying, and leaving him?”
“Everybody dies, Bella. And anyway, what are my options?” Rose laughed. “Become a vampire?”
“Yes,” said Bella, seriously.
The amusement faded off of Rose’s face. “I don’t consider that an option.”
“But you’d be with them forever.”
“But I wouldn’t be me.”
“You’d be better than you,” said Bella, dreamily.
“You’re very young, aren’t you?” said Rose, suddenly, kindly. “I used to think that way, that I could be better than me. And then I met the Doctor, and he taught me that there is nothing better than me. Surely Edward feels that way about you? There isn’t any need to be better, Bella.”
“Are you ready?” asked the Doctor.
Rose looked up at him. He’d pushed the pram over to the table, with Edward beside him. “Sure.”
“Excellent. Well, it was nice meeting all of you.”
Rose knew him well enough to doubt he actually thought that, but she echoed the sentiment and gathered the children.
“Did you have fun playing?” Rose asked them, as they walked back to the TARDIS.
“She was kinda boring,” said Brem.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You didn’t have a scintillating conversation with Bella?” asked the Doctor, holding the TARDIS door open for them and over-enunciating her name.
“She’s very young,” said Rose, by way of explanation.
“Yes,” agreed the Doctor. “I thought that about Edward, too. He wants to discuss immortality? Let’s talk after he’s been around 900 years.”
“Yeah,” said Rose. “What’d the two of you talk about, anyway?”
“Oh. This and that. Complicated things.”
“You talked about hair, didn’t you?” asked Rose, amused.
“What?” protested the Doctor. “Well, maybe a bit.”
Rose grinned at him, and settled the kids in the nursery before finding the Doctor. “I think it was an eventful day for them,” she told him, as he tinkered in the control room. “They’re all napping.”
“Too many eventful days lately,” he sighed.
She sat on the captain’s seat and stretched her legs out so her feet rested on the console. “Doctor…” she began.
“Rose, please let’s not,” he cut her off. “Can we not?”
“Sure,” she agreed, in a small voice, after a second.
He slid out from under the console. They looked at each other for a second. She slid off the captain’s chair and crawled over to lay against him, head pillowed on his chest. She listened to the comforting double beats of his hearts. He pulled her against him and kissed her hair.
“Edward was saying that Bella is jeopardy-friendly. He didn’t use that phrase, but that’s what he meant.”
“And what did you say?” she asked, smiling.
“I said so’s mine. But every time I save her, she saves me right back.” She felt him nuzzle at her forehead. “For however long I have with you,” he whispered, “you keep saving my life.”
“Yes,” she whispered back, and steadfastly refused to get herself emotional over this. She’d just gotten him back. She wanted to enjoy all of her time with him, not worry about it again already.
“And he asked me about biting pillows,” said the Doctor.
Rose sat up at look down at him. “Yes! She asked me about that, too! What’s it mean?”
“I don’t know. Something about her being covered in bruises and feathers. I told him our sex isn’t that exciting. Really rather dull, actually.”
“You’re such a bastard sometimes,” Rose grinned at him.
“Wellllll, it’s true, I always say our sex life needs to be more adventurous.”
“No bruises,” Rose told him. “But we could do something with feathers.”
“Ah,” he said. “Now that’s the spirit.”
Author -
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, Rosalie Cullen
Spoilers - Through the end of S2, and for all of "Breaking Dawn"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - The Doctor and Rose meet Edward and Bella.
Author's Notes - Yes, it's a Chaosverse/"Twilight" crossover. Please blame
rosa_acicularis. And if you really, really love "Twilight," you probably don't want so much to click on the cut.
Many thanks to
jlrpuck for being persuaded to beta this by my stream of e-mails to her.
The gorgeous icon was created by
swankkat for me, commissioned by
jlrpuck for my birthday.
Rose, adjusting Fortuna’s bonnet, glanced up to make sure that the Doctor was watching Brem and Athena. Not that she didn’t trust him to watch the kids-he had, after all, somehow made it safe and sound through a whole five months without her-it was just that sometimes she felt that she just had to make completely sure that the kids were still there. The Doctor was saying, “No, it isn’t Yusde,” to Brem’s question. “It’s just fog.”
“It’s a lot of fog,” said Brem, wrinkling his nose.
“Welllll,” said the Doctor. “It’s the Pacific Northwest.” He turned back to Rose. “Rose!” he shouted. “Leave her bonnet! There isn’t any sun. Come on.”
The Pacific Northwest trip had been the Doctor’s idea. Fishing! He had suddenly decided he wanted to take the kids fishing! Rose could think of nothing more boring, but, of course, the Doctor had made it sound like a marvelous adventure, and now Brem in his jumper and Athena in a sparkly pink get-up that she could not be talked out of were skipping next to their father as they walked toward the end of the dock.
Rose gave up on Fortuna’s bonnet and settled her back in the pram, pushing it down the dock. There was a cluster of incredibly good-looking people off to the side of the dock, all of whom watched her unnecessarily closely as she strode by. Rose, remembering the Family of Blood situation, quickened her pace a little bit.
One, a little girl, pointed at her and said, “But that one doesn’t smell funny.”
“Renesmee,” scolded one of the other people in the cluster.
Rose pushed the pram fasted. Renesmee? Was that another language? Why wasn’t the TARDIS translating?
“Doctor!” she called, anxious that they not be separated.
He turned back toward her, pausing their forward movement, and his eyes slid suddenly over to the cluster of people. He turned abruptly, and shouted, “Brem!” and she realized he’d let Brem run ahead, to examine the barnacles on one of the ropes tethering one of the boats to the dock. “Come here, would you?” he asked, his voice so light and polite that she knew she’d been right to be alarmed. Then he turned and walked toward her, kept one hand in Athena’s and leaned over with the other and picked Fortuna up out of the pram.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said, sunnily, at finding herself in his arms.
“Hello, darling,” he replied, still striving to keep his voice light, while his eyes slid back over to the cluster of people. “They’re watching you,” he murmured, under his breath.
“I know,” she breathed back. “Why?”
“Not…entirely…sure…”
“What’s the plan?”
“TARDIS,” he said. “Brem,” he called, sharply, and she realized Brem had wandered right past them, toward the cluster of good-looking people watching them.
“Who are they?” Rose asked, as Brem halted and tilted his head at them. “They look like a bunch of bloody pagan gods.”
“What’s that even mean?” asked the Doctor. “You’re the one who’s a statue in the British Museum, and don’t you forget it.”
“Dad,” said Brem, having re-joined the group. “Why’re they-”
“I know,” the Doctor cut him off. “We need to get back to the TARDIS.”
Brem huffed exasperatedly. “But we were supposed to go fishing.”
“There are other places in the world to go swimming,” the Doctor told him, “where there aren’t-“
“Excuse me,” said a voice, as lightly and politely as the Doctor had been striving for earlier. One of them had come over to them, all untidy bronze hair and tawny gold eyes. “But what are you?” he inquired.
The Doctor blinked. “What?”
“What are you?” he asked again, and it was clear he meant it.
“What are you?” asked the Doctor, equally politely, but he reached out and took Brem by the shoulder and pushed him behind him in a move that the odd man did not miss.
He smiled. “Let’s not play games. We don’t like unidentified threats.”
“Neither do we,” said the Doctor, with a trace of Oncoming Storm in his voice. “We were just leaving. It’d be smart of you to let us leave.”
“It’d be smart of you to tell us what, exactly, you are.”
“Rose,” said the Doctor, without taking his eyes off the man he was talking to, “why don’t you take the kids and-“ The rest of the good-looking coterie, which had been all in a cluster, were suddenly fanned out over the dock, blocking escape routes. They’d moved in the blink of an eye. The Doctor sighed. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “I really hate doing this nonsense in front of the kids. Here’s your one warning, let us go now, et cetera, et cetera,” he drawled, affecting boredom. He turned to place Fortuna in the pram.
One of the good-looking crowd was suddenly near him, one hand reaching out to intercept the baby, and the Doctor snatched Fortuna back. “You lay on hand on any of my children-”
It was a woman who had reached for Fortuna, a blonde, and she smiled at him. “We’re very difficult to kill.”
“Are you now?” asked the Doctor, and he reached for his sonic screwdriver, flipped it in his hand, and held it up. There was a sudden gleaming burst of sunlight through the fog, which the Doctor had expected to just be enough to singe them a bit, but instead of reacting the way he’d thought, every single one of them burst out into dazzle. The Doctor stared open-mouthed, as the fog rolled back in.
“Oh, Daddy,” exclaimed Athena, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “That was lovely. Do it again!”
“Plasmavores who sparkle?” asked the Doctor, disbelievingly, and turned back to the bronze-haired one. “What kind of rubbish is that?”
“What are they, Doctor?” asked Rose.
“Well, strictly speaking, they ought to be-”
“Vampires!” Brem realized, suddenly. “You’re vampires.”
“But sunlight doesn’t kill you,” said the Doctor. “Welllllll, that’s evolution for you, I suppose. Marvelous thing, really.”
“How’d you know?” asked the bronze-haired one.
“You move quickly. And you knew we weren’t human somehow. Sense of smell. We’ve had a bit of a run-in recently with creatures with advanced senses of smell. It was foremost in my brain that we smell differently. It was an easy link to make.”
“So you know what we are. What are you?”
“Not a threat. We’re leaving now. And, if I were you, I’d not harm any humans you might find around here. That would make me very unhappy.”
“We don’t harm humans.”
“No?” The Doctor lifted his eyebrows. “You’re…enlightened vampires?”
“You could call us that. I’m Edward Cullen.”
“I’m the Doctor-”
“Don’t touch her!” shrieked a voice, and the Doctor turned his head.
Brem had his sonic screwdriver out, scanning the little girl in the group. The woman who had shrieked appeared next to him.
“Oi!” snapped the Doctor. “He’s only scanning her!”
“Leave him, Bella,” said Edward Cullen. “Sorry, she’s…overprotective. You know how it is.” Edward’s eyes drifted to the two daughters the Doctor was still sheltering.
“Yes,” replied the Doctor, briefly. “Brem. Come here and stop causing trouble.”
“You know,” remarked Edward, “I can’t read your thoughts.”
“Tragic, that,” said the Doctor.
“Not any of yours. And that one, at least, is absolutely human.” Edward gestured to Rose.
“Yes. Well. Again, tragic.”
“It doesn’t work, you know,” noted Edward, sadly. “Falling in love with a human. While being an immortal being.”
“I’m not immortal. And I think I pretty much get how it works, thanks very much.”
“No,” said the woman Edward had called Bella. “What will you do?” She looked at Rose. “When you grow old and die while he…doesn’t?”
Rose smiled tightly. “’S a bit of a personal question, isn’t it?”
“I think we might have a lot to talk about,” said Edward Cullen.
Which was how Rose came to find herself sitting at an outdoor café with a teenage vampire named Bella who was watching her while Rose sipped on an iced tea. Athena and Brem were playing with the little vampire girl. The Doctor and Edward were off by the dock still. The Doctor was watching the kids and absently pushing Fortuna’s pram back and forth, while Fortuna watched her brother and sister. Edward was talking to him enthusiastically. The rest of the vampires were in a knot a little way away, talking.
“Your kids are beautiful,” said Bella.
“Thanks,” said Rose. “So’s yours.” She didn’t know why she was stuck in this conversation. What could the Doctor possibly have to talk to Edward Cullen about?
“Having her killed me.”
“Ah, one of those. It was touch-and-go with Fortuna for me. Complicated children, right?”
“Your husband’s features are a bit uneven.”
“They’re what?” Rose blinked.
“Well, for an immortal being. I thought all of them would be perfect. Like Edward.”
“He isn’t immortal, he just lives a long life,” said Rose. “And he is perfect.”
“Does he…bite pillows?”
Rose stared at her. “Does he what?”
“Never mind. And you’re okay with this?”
“With what?”
“Dying, and leaving him?”
“Everybody dies, Bella. And anyway, what are my options?” Rose laughed. “Become a vampire?”
“Yes,” said Bella, seriously.
The amusement faded off of Rose’s face. “I don’t consider that an option.”
“But you’d be with them forever.”
“But I wouldn’t be me.”
“You’d be better than you,” said Bella, dreamily.
“You’re very young, aren’t you?” said Rose, suddenly, kindly. “I used to think that way, that I could be better than me. And then I met the Doctor, and he taught me that there is nothing better than me. Surely Edward feels that way about you? There isn’t any need to be better, Bella.”
“Are you ready?” asked the Doctor.
Rose looked up at him. He’d pushed the pram over to the table, with Edward beside him. “Sure.”
“Excellent. Well, it was nice meeting all of you.”
Rose knew him well enough to doubt he actually thought that, but she echoed the sentiment and gathered the children.
“Did you have fun playing?” Rose asked them, as they walked back to the TARDIS.
“She was kinda boring,” said Brem.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You didn’t have a scintillating conversation with Bella?” asked the Doctor, holding the TARDIS door open for them and over-enunciating her name.
“She’s very young,” said Rose, by way of explanation.
“Yes,” agreed the Doctor. “I thought that about Edward, too. He wants to discuss immortality? Let’s talk after he’s been around 900 years.”
“Yeah,” said Rose. “What’d the two of you talk about, anyway?”
“Oh. This and that. Complicated things.”
“You talked about hair, didn’t you?” asked Rose, amused.
“What?” protested the Doctor. “Well, maybe a bit.”
Rose grinned at him, and settled the kids in the nursery before finding the Doctor. “I think it was an eventful day for them,” she told him, as he tinkered in the control room. “They’re all napping.”
“Too many eventful days lately,” he sighed.
She sat on the captain’s seat and stretched her legs out so her feet rested on the console. “Doctor…” she began.
“Rose, please let’s not,” he cut her off. “Can we not?”
“Sure,” she agreed, in a small voice, after a second.
He slid out from under the console. They looked at each other for a second. She slid off the captain’s chair and crawled over to lay against him, head pillowed on his chest. She listened to the comforting double beats of his hearts. He pulled her against him and kissed her hair.
“Edward was saying that Bella is jeopardy-friendly. He didn’t use that phrase, but that’s what he meant.”
“And what did you say?” she asked, smiling.
“I said so’s mine. But every time I save her, she saves me right back.” She felt him nuzzle at her forehead. “For however long I have with you,” he whispered, “you keep saving my life.”
“Yes,” she whispered back, and steadfastly refused to get herself emotional over this. She’d just gotten him back. She wanted to enjoy all of her time with him, not worry about it again already.
“And he asked me about biting pillows,” said the Doctor.
Rose sat up at look down at him. “Yes! She asked me about that, too! What’s it mean?”
“I don’t know. Something about her being covered in bruises and feathers. I told him our sex isn’t that exciting. Really rather dull, actually.”
“You’re such a bastard sometimes,” Rose grinned at him.
“Wellllll, it’s true, I always say our sex life needs to be more adventurous.”
“No bruises,” Rose told him. “But we could do something with feathers.”
“Ah,” he said. “Now that’s the spirit.”