Title: Mels and the Wolf |
AO3 |
TeaspoonFandom: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Characters: Mels Zucker, Amy Pond, Jack Harkness, Alex Hopkins
Prompt: family
Medium: fic
Wordcount: 1083
Rating: Teen
Warnings: no standard warnings apply; fic does contain creature death and canonical thoughts of killing a character
Summary: Mels would be the one to protect her mother from a wolf.
For
![](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo as well as
![](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
onlyonebed (just not in time for the latter's ficathon). Does contain a creature from the Marvel Comics run of Doctor Who comics, but it's not necessary to read those comics to understand the creature.
I did Google up the British education system and Welsh outdoor camps for some of this fic, but please tell me if I goofed up on anything.
When Amy and Mels were in Year 5, a week long field trip to an outdoor camp in the Brecon Beacons in Wales was announced for the summer term.
Mels poked Amy in her right side with her left elbow, grinning. "Guess we're rooming together."
"I guess so," Amy said. "Everyone's afraid of me now because I'm you're friend."
On the bus to the Brecon Beacons, Mels saw what appeared to be a mysterious man in a hat and a black trench coat in the forest. The bus was nearing the camp.
Mels pointed at the man at the distance. "There's a man in the forest."
By the time Amy looked out the window, the man was gone. "I don't see anything."
"There was a man there. I saw him."
"Stop playing, Mels."
But Mels didn't forget about the man in the woods. She set out to find the man. She had a bad feeling it could hurt her mum if she didn't get to it first.
The rest of Mels and Amy's class, unaware of the man in the forest, went through the first day's itinerary. Amy and Mels unpacked in the room they shared with two bunk beds. Then the class met their camp leaders, went on a mountain climb, and had dinner.
When bedtime rolled around at the camp, it was time for Mels to find out who this man was.
The camp offered air rifle shooting, but Amy and the rest of the class were too young to shoot rifles. Target practice wasn't on the class agenda. When Mels was younger, she remembered holding devices like guns and shooting targets that looked like the Doctor. Barely, though--the people who taught her to shoot were the Silence, after all. Mels was sure she had enough training to aim a rifle at the man in the woods. But she needed to "borrow" an air rifle first.
Mels picked the lock to where the air rifles were at the camp and "borrowed" an air rifle. Then she walked into the woods near the camp looking for the man, making sure she was heading towards Leadworth on the road they traveled on to get there.
It didn't take long for Mels to find the man. He stood where he was standing when Mels saw him on the bus earlier in the morning.
"Oi, you, I don't think you're supposed to be here," Mels said to the man.
The man said and did nothing.
"You should be going."
Still no response.
"All right, then, I'm going to make you leave the Brecon Beacons."
Mels aimed her air rifle at the man, cocking the gun. That was when she realised the man wasn't a man at all. And it was never wearing a hat and a trench coat. The "man" was actually a giant wolf.
Mels shot at the wolf. The wolf recoiled when it was hit by Mels. But it managed to still stand up. And it decided to charge at Mels.
Mels kept shooting at the wolf. It would stop when it was hit, but it kept charging at Mels.
Mels backed up from the wolf and adjusted the grip on her rifle. "That's enough." She hit the wolf in the head with the rifle barrel. Because of Mels' extraordinary strength, the swing was hard enough for the wolf to fall over on its back. The wolf turned around and ran away from the camp.
Mels sighed. "Finally." She sighed again. "And I can't take this rifle home with me. Too obvious. Back to the cupboard you go, then."
The wolf didn't realise it was running towards a black Range Rover. Just before it could reach the Range Rover, it was taken down by a blaster.
"Jack, what the hell are you doing?" a man asked.
"Saving us from a Werelox, Alex," Jack said. "You don't want to be bitten or scratched by one. You'll turn into one of them in a matter of moments. And the Werelox virus is hard to find a cure for. I have second-hand experience."
"We could've saved it. Observed it."
Jack laughed. "Trust me, you don't want to do that."
Alex sighed. "Karen, James, load the Werelox in the SUV. Don't touch its fangs or its nails." He turned to Jack. "I'm amazed I haven't retconned and fired you yet, Jack."
With the rifle put back in its proper place, Mels went back to the room she and Amy were sharing. Amy was asleep on the lower bunker, holding a Raggedy Man doll in her arms. Mels had conflicted feelings about the doll. She did know it was in the shape of the Doctor, and she hated the Doctor. She knew she had to kill him, but she wasn't sure why. Then she came up with a justification for killing him: the Doctor hadn't shown up to chase the wolf away from camp. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do, save people? Then Mels remembered he hadn't bothered to save the people on the Titanic or bothered to stop Hitler. That was why she was going to kill the Doctor, someday.
On the other hand, she kept envisioning the Doctor stepping out of his TARDIS. Once he stepped out of the TARDIS, she was going to propose to him, and they would be married. She didn't want to do weddings, but this wedding would be an exception because it was her marriage to the Doctor. And then they would save all the people on the Titanic, or something.
Mels decided to not decapitate the Raggedy Man doll. Mels knew how fond her mother was of the doll. And someday they'd meet while she was marrying and killing the Doctor at the same time.
Mels did want one thing, though, then and there; a cuddle with Amy. She slid into Amy's bed and hugged her from behind.
Amy woke up. "Why are you in bed with me?"
"I wanted a hug."
"You have your own bed."
"I feel like sleeping in your bed tonight. I don't want to climb back down again."
"Alright, Mels. You can sleep in my bed tonight." Amy went back to sleep.
Mels hugged Amy from behind again before rolling over and falling asleep again. She smiled, knowing her mum was safe.
Now if Mels could get Amy to see that Rory loved her and wasn't gay, then she knew she'd exist for good. But that was work for other days.
This entry was originally posted at
http://merryghoul.dreamwidth.org/299070.html. Comments on either site are fine.