Post-Apocalyptic Multifandom Ficathon

Oh, thank God.

2008-05-06T23:52:56Z

Aaaaand all apocalyptothon assignments have been sent out! WOOHOO!

If you have a problem with your assignment or you didn't receive it, you can feel free to email me. And if you have any questions for your recipient, it is perfectly acceptable to ask them anonymously in the comments of the original submission post..

Now if you'll all excuse me, there's an amaretto and Pepsi with my name on it.

Important note about submission emails

2008-05-05T19:15:27Z

I'm almost done going through assignments and working hard to make sure everybody gets an assignment they'll like (\o/), but right now I'm in the middle of a four-day-long shift of twelve-hour workdays so due to coming home most workdays shagged out and barely able to think straight I may not be able to send out your assignments until my shift is over on Thursday.

As such, I'm pushing the deadline for first drafts ahead to August 15th and the deadline for final drafts ahead to September 1st.

Hey, the more time I spend making sure everybody's happy, the better. :)

Aaaaaaand that's it!

2008-05-02T04:07:20Z

The submissions post for apocalyptothon is now CLOSED.

I should get assignments sent out in the next few days. Below is a list of everybody I have submissions from, so if you signed up you should be on the list.

PAGE ONE:

trollprincess
wal-lace
petitchouette
msp-hacker
kellifer-fic
karrenia-rune
bessemerprocess
indiana-j
lyl-devil
soda-and-capes
dark-roast
isabeau
kanedax
gryvon
caitn
daffybroad
-usakeh-
firstgold
cinaed
akire-yta
hooloovoowrites
lucky-sometimes
thecomingnight
missmara

PAGE TWO:

circeniko
maggiebloome
trcunning
ladybug218
doyle-sb4
resolute
deifire
wizefics
bad-goth
valderys
netgirl-y2k
shirasade
shelled-avenger
whitetower
fangirl-lizzie
savepureness
settiai
extraonions
ficangel
avariel-wings
irisbleufic
bedlamsbard
milleniumrex
youngest-one
pie-is-good

PAGE THREE:

drytinder
demonqueen666
danniisupernova
beautifulstars
krilymcc
livii
inveigler
timba
incir
amathela
katharos_8
breibribeez
k4writer02
argyleheir
enterincolor
entangled_now
phiremangston
marishna
penmage
storydivagirl
stellar_dust
urban_folk_girl
biggrstaffbunch
eisoj5

PAGE FOUR:

intl_princess
xfirefly9x
kelly-girl
slashy-me
furies
rhyana
alizarin_nyc
jmtorres
hotelmontana
maharetr
nekare
darlas-mom
soundingsea
obsessivemuch

(Forgive the dashes and underscores. One of my shift keys is broken, so. *shrugs*)

YAY END OF THE WORLD. \o/

Submission post for 2008 Apocalyptothon

2008-04-17T20:44:45Z

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS: Read this entire post carefully from beginning to end. Yes, even you, that one who's been in this ficathon since the first time I did it. We're doing things a little differently this year to make sure that everyone gets a story on the due date.

Also, I combined Doctor Who and Torchwood to make room for more fandoms, and I took the top three in the poll since it was so damn close and because if the last two years were any indication we should have enough people to handle it. ;)

ONWARD!

***

The list of fandoms for the Post-Apocalyptic Multifandom Ficathon this year includes all fandoms with eight or more votes and several with seven. For the record, some of you people are on crack. \o/

1. Bandom (any band; feel free to specify which band)
2. Bones
3. Buffy/Angel
4. Burn Notice
5. Chuck
6. Criminal Minds
7. CSI (any 'verse; feel free to specify which)
8. The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
9. DC Universe (feel free to specify)
10. Dead Like Me
11. Dexter
12. Doctor Who/Torchwood (any doctor; feel free to specify which)
13. Due South
14. Eureka
15. Firefly/Serenity
16. Gargoyles
17. Gilmore Girls
18. Good Omens
19. Harry Potter (Book or movie; feel free to specify)
20. Heroes
21. Horatio Hornblower
22. House M.D.
23. How I Met Your Mother
24. Mythbusters
25. NCIS
26. Numb3rs
27. The OC
28. The Office (US or UK versions; feel free to specify which)
29. Pirates of the Caribbean
30. Psych
31. Pushing Daisies
32. Roswell
33. Smallville
34. Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis (feel free to specify which)
35. Supernatural
36. Terminator/Sarah Connor Chronicles (Nuclear holocaust/robot war will NOT be allowed for this fandom)
37. Veronica Mars
38. Vertigo Comics (any comic; feel free to specify which)
39. The West Wing
40. The X-Files
41. X-Men (any 'verse; feel free to specify)

Your submission should consist of the following:

-- Between three and five requests in a minimum of three different fandoms:
....... Only two of these requests may be crossovers. Any fandom on the list may be crossed over, but no more than two can be crossed over at once.
....... You may specify how you'd like the world to end -- nuclear war, asteroid strike, worldwide epidemic, etc.
....... Please feel free to include what you would like or not like in the story you receive (for example, if you'd prefer comedy over drama or whether you'd just like one big angstfest). However, please don't go TOO into detail. Be as general as possible for the sake of your poor world-destroying writer.

-- A list of fandoms you are willing to write. You must list at least five of the above that you can at least try, but please pick as many as you possibly can. If you can do that, then I'll try to hook you up with at least two fandoms you can write in the request you receive.

Also, please make sure to include any limitations to any fandoms you’re willing to write. If you can write Buffyverse but your knowledge of Angel only extends to season two or you say you can write CSI but don’t specify that you only mean the Las Vegas version, you may get an unpleasant shock when your assignment shows up in your email.

-- A short list of things you will NOT write in those fandoms. For obvious reasons, post-apocalyptic destruction, violence and character death may not be on those lists. Also, feel free to include the rating you're willing to write to -- if you don't want to write sex but somebody else wants a big smutfest, it'll be nice for me to know. :)

Please post in the following format:

Livejournal user name:
E-mail:
Request 1 - fandom:
Details:
Request 2 - fandom:
Details:
Request 3 - fandom:
Details:
Request 4 - fandom:
Details:
Request 5 - fandom:
Details:
Fandoms you will write:
Things you will not write:
Can you pinch-hit in case someone drops out?:
If so, which fandoms can you pinch-hit for?:

The rules for assignments include:

1. You only have to write one of the requests you receive; however, if you wish to write anymore, knock yourself out.

2. Your story must be over 1000 words long. No maximum word count as long as you finish by the due date.

3. Your story must be set before, during, or after the apocalypse. The apocalypse can be naturally occurring (the ice caps melting, an asteroid striking the planet, the Yellowstone caldera exploding), manmade (nuclear war, biological warfare), mystical (whatever that might entail in your particular universe), or whatever works within the confines of the request. Any other plot details are fair game.

4. Don't tell anyone but your beta or betas which assignment you've gotten, especially the person whose assignment you've received. If you really need to ask your recipient a question, anonymous comments to their request in this thread are allowed.

5. First drafts of all assignments should be emailed to me at trollprincess AT livejournal DOT com by midnight on August 1, 2008. I will NOT be the one posting your story – this is simply for me to ensure that there will be a story available for your recipient. If I do not receive a story from you by midnight on August 1, 2008, your assignment will be offered to a pinch hitter. I will not contact you to ask you where your story is and this is NOT an excuse for you not to contact me if you cannot get your story done. Not finishing your assignment and not contacting me before the deadline means you don't get to play with the shiny nuclear weapons next year.

If you are unable to finish your assignment by August 1 but think that you may be able to get it done by August 15, great! I'll give the assignment to a pinch hitter as well and maybe your recipient will get two stories. :)

But as God is my witness, everybody's getting a story this year. Even if I have to go to your house and smack you with a salami to get you to do it.

6. Stories with be posted BY YOU on August 15, 2008. The subject line of your post should include:

Title, for Recipient (Fandom, Rating)

The header for your story should include the following:

Title:
Author:
Recipient:
Fandom:
Rating:
Spoilers (if applicable):
Warnings (if applicable):
Summary:

7. Get your story beta-read before posting. It’s your funeral if you don’t, pal.

Also, if you never finished your assigned story last year and never bothered to tell me or contact me about it, please save me the time and effort of being Her Royal Highness, Princess Bitch Mod, and don't bother signing up. (Actually, okay, that was a little bitchy.)

Submissions are due by May 1st. Go forth and pimp, y’all. :)

EDIT: And this post is now CLOSED. No other submissions will be accepted as of this edit. Thanks, you guys! :)

Vying for the open position on the list of fandoms:

2008-04-17T15:33:58Z

I have one spot left on the list and eight fandoms tied for ... uh, whatever place this is, so --

View Poll: Uh-oh!

Another round of the Apocalyptothon

2008-04-15T14:49:58Z

Let's say we get another round of the Apocalyptothon going, shall we?

Name as many fandoms as you'd like -- movies, books, TV shows, comics, anything. The fandoms with the most votes will be ones used for prompting purposes.

Suggestions:

1. Try to steer clear of fandoms that are already post-apocalyptic by nature -- for example, Jericho and Battlestar Galactica. That's just shooting fish in a barrel.
2. Just because somebody else mentioned your fandom doesn't mean you shouldn't. It's a vote. Name everything you want to see or write for, no matter how silly you think it might sound. :)
3. Suggesting fandoms does not obligate you to write in the ficathon. If you don't want to write but you still want to read fic in a certain fandom, go on and suggest away.

I will count up the votes on Thursday night, post the list, and open the community for submissions.

And feel free to pimp out this post and the comm! :)

EDIT: Okay, since I'd love to write in it as well and because there seems to be enthusiasm for the fandom, if it does get enough votes I will include the Terminator 'verse, with the exception that it may feature any apocalypse EXCEPT the nuclear holocaust. :)

OTHER EDIT: Voting is now CLOSED. I'm tabulating the votes right now, so gimme a few hours and it'll be time for submissions. \o/

Okay, so.

2007-08-13T23:13:42Z

The list of people who signed up for apocalyptothon this year and have not received a story yet:

wizefics
jacedesbff
erode
raz0rgirl
skittythegreat
piecesofalice
foxxcub
twincy
fated_addiction
dark_roast
ignazwisdom
deifire
marishna
general_jinjur
k4writer02
fryadvocate

I know a couple of these were taken by pinch-hitters, and a couple of these have extensions or gave me a head's-up they'd be late. And if somebody's on the list and their story's already posted, I apologize and I'll take it off the list. But what I'd really, REALLY appreciate if it hasn't been posted yet is a quick email at trollprinces AT livejournal DOT com from everybody who still hasn't posted their story with an estimate as to when you're going to be able to post.

No pressure ... YET. *rubs hands together wickedly*

Have I mentioned how awful I am at playing Bad Cop?

(I disabled comments on this post, if only to avoid any reveals in regards to who's writing for whom. :))

The Nine Stages (Lost)

2007-08-12T18:28:07Z

Title: The Nine Stages
Author: Julie (Urban_Folk_Girl)
Fandom: Lost
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen
Warnings: Massive character death
Recipient: Mouseykins1

Request: "Hey, if you've lived on Craphole Island for half a year, surviving the end of the world shouldn't be too hard, right?" "Whatever you say, James." (Any pairing as long as there's no Jack/Kate.)

Notes: UBER LATE SUBMISSION, but written for Apocalyptothon 07. Goes a little off the show's timeline, in that is assumes the castaways have spent 10ish years on the island. Not sure if this is quite in line with the request, but this is where my muse took me. Sorry it's so late!

“Refugees will not resist the homeland security structure.” The guard holstered his pistol. "Dissenters will be swiftly deposed.”

FF: "Sunset" (Angel)

2007-08-11T02:51:42Z

Title: Sunset
Author: raz0r.girl (raz0rgirl)
Fandom: Angel the Series
Rating: FRK+ or T or something for some minor language.
Pairing: Gen.
Warnings: none
Recipient: kajikia for the apocalyptothon ’07 challenge
Request: Something old skool, with a focus on Gunn, Cordy, and Wes. Gen or the pairing of your choice.
Summary: what do you do when the world’s about to end—for real—and you can’t do anything to change it?
Notes: Profound apologies for how late this is. And for it being mostly dialogue (that’s what wanted to get written—I may revisit it to make it more narrative sometime in the future). Consider this an AU that diverges in the middle of season 2 after "The Thin Dead Line”. 4300 words, give or take.

Massive thanks to general_jinjur for taking several beta passes at this at extremely short notice.

They stood on the roof of the hotel with the setting sun behind them and watched as the planet’s shadow crept higher. The sky darkened in slow increments. The familiar dusky pinks and blues were accented by a haze of emerald clouds, making the horizon look as though it had grown a covering of verdigris.

“It’s beautiful,” Cordelia said. “It shouldn’t be so beautiful.”

( follow the fake cut ) or ( read it in your own journal's style )

FIC: No Joking Matter (BtVS/Supernatural)

2007-08-09T04:03:31Z

Title: No Joking Matter
Author: wizefics
Fandom: BtVS/Supernatural
Characters: Buffy, Faith, Dean, Sam
Summary: Two slayers and two hunters walk inside a bar the night before zombies are scheduled to take over the world.
Recipient: rhyana at apocalyptothon
Warning: The end of the world is nigh... And... this fic is probably far too cheerful. And strange.
A/N: I am SO SORRY this is late. I am equally sorry that this is terrible. It is not at all what I imagined. I am willing to try my hand at this again and see if I can’t come up with something more in line with the challenge theme, but the muse just wouldn’t cooperate!

As always, feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Even if it’s critical.

***************

Two slayers and two hunters walk into a bar the night before zombies take over the world. And it's not funny.

And the Waves Taketh

2007-08-09T03:57:30Z

Title: And the Waves Taketh
Author: gryvon
Fandom: Pirates of the Carribean
Rating: PG
Pairing: None.
Warnings: None.
Recipient: bedlamsbard
Request: That's a bad way to make sure there'll always be pirates, mate." Norrington, Will, and Tia Dalma, gen if possible.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. >.<

The world sounded strange in the sudden calm. Norrington almost missed the feel of rain against his face. It felt like days, weeks even, since he'd seen clear skies free of dark clouds and torrential rains but he knew, by the lack of rumbling in his gut if nothing else, that the storm had lasted hours at the most. Not many hours at that, since the sun was shining just above the horizon. It had just set when the storm had started.

It shouldn't be possible for so much to change overnight.

Captain Jack Sparrow stood in the same spot, as he had for the entirety of the storm – either his own shock or the magic on the wooden box open in his hands keeping him in place despite the harsh rocking of the ship. The Black Pearl still swayed drunkenly, heaving dangerously from side to side. It had been doing much worse minutes ago.

He was glad that he wasn't prone to sea sickness. The ship reeked enough without his own contribution, and it was a bad of pride – as if pride really meant anything at this point – that he was one of the few that hadn't vomited.

One of the ropes swung slowly across deck and at first, he thought they were about to be tossed again but it was just Will Turner, the first to break the stillness of the crew, releasing the tether he'd clung to throughout the storm. Will stared out at the ocean, emotion heavy on his face. Norrington could empathize with the blacksmith's thoughts – he felt the blacksmith's loss as well. It was almost an insult to his own character that out of all those on the ship, Will was the one he empathized most with. But, given the choice between his former rival-in-love and a group of pirates, it was hardly surprising.

They were both relieved that the storm was over and also nervous. Was there something else coming? How much damage had been done? More importantly, was there anyone outside of this boat and her crew still left alive. Unlike the pirates, they still left part of their hearts on land.

"That," Will's voice wavered as he took a step towards Jack, "was a bad way to make sure there'll always be pirates."

The pirate captain looked between the open box and the sea around them. His lips parted and then stopped. He raised a finger, as if to forestall his own speech, and then lowered his arm back to the box.

"Bad," Jack's voice carried over the entire deck. If his imagination were broader, Norrington might have imagined that the pirate captain's voice carried over the entire sea, which by current standards, meant most if not all of the world. "...is a relative term. Bad for whom? Certainly not for me, and I think not for you either, savvy?"

He wanted to get mad. There was certainly a lot to be mad over. He thought of his mother, in her manor home in northern England, and his father, still at command high in the Navy ranks. His brother, Albert, also at sea, and Dantes, just starting school. Elizabeth, home with her father in Port Royal. Names and faces flashed through his mind, too many to count, too many to really feel the pain of loss just yet – all of them people who may now be dead.

"Don'cha worry." The witch, the one that had started all of this by giving Jack that infernal box, sashayed across the deck, fabric and seaweed swaying at her hips as she crossed to stand at the rail, palms out to the sea. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply of the wet air, and smiled. "The world is better than it once was. Remember now, how it was the flood that set the world clean."

"Meaning no offence, Tia dear, but I am no Noah, and we're a little light on livestock."

Laughter overtook him. It was absurd. Everything about this was absurd and if he were in his right mind, he wouldn't believe any of it. But he did. The witch said that opening the box would release the sea as it had been, half over as large as it was now. Then she'd said something about power and fate and bloody, thrice-damned pirates, and that was all it took to make Captain Sparrow open the carved little box. Then came the rain – certainly not forty days worth, but enough, it seemed, to make him believe the world really had flooded.

His back hit the railing and he sank down until he was sitting on soaked wood. Water pooled under his hand – the one that was not held to his face and he covered his eyes as he laughed and laughed and laughed until his stomach hurt. Or maybe he was just hungry, finally. Maybe time was finally deciding to catch up with him.

"I think he's lost it."

The fact that it was Jack, of all people, questioning his sanity just made him laugh harder. Dropping his hand to his side, he smiled up at the madmen he'd somehow landed himself with.

This wasn't how he pictured his revenge on the pirate.

"Don't you see," he told them, "they're all dead." As he spoke, he knew it wasn't entirely true. Hope still held onto a little corner of his heart, whispering that someone, somewhere must still be alive. He'd truly go mad if the only humans left on the planet were bloody pirates.

Tia's hands clenched on the wooden rail and her smile dropped. "Not all." His laughter stopped, dying so fast he wondered if he'd even made a sound or if the laughter had just been in his head. "No, not everyone. The race of man still keeps its breath, though its tracks... much lighter on the world."

"And Port Royal?" He asked. His eyes met with Turner's. "What of our dear Elizabeth and her father?

"It's a port. They've got boats." Jack spoke defensively, as if he'd just realized not everyone he cared for lived at sea.

"That's hardly comforting." The anger that had escaped him previously welled up. It felt good. It felt familiar, normal. Was there anything more normal than a navy man hating pirates?

Jack shrugged and tossed the empty box onto the deck. Wood clattered on wood and half the crew jumped. Norrington flinched – not quite a full jump, but he was sitting. He'd half expected the ship to explode, or everyone to turn into monkeys, or even the world to turn upside down.

Seconds passed. Nothing happened and he felt safe to breathe again.

The wheel turned easily in Jack's hands and the ship lurched to the side – purposely this time.

"What's done is done, I always said." Jack leaned against the wheel. "Best we can do now is head back to land, assuming we can find it, and see who's left."

The smell of seaweed and clams hit him as Tia Dalma stood beside him. She stared up at Jack as she spoke, but Norrington had a feeling her words weren't entirely for the pirate. "And those that are left to the sea, thee and thine kin and those that would dare brave Neptune's wrath, from thee shall the rulers be chosen."

Norrington turned away. The sea stared back at him from beyond the rail, vast and empty. There was nothing left to say, and certainly not a thing he could do to reverse this mess.

"Bloody pirates."

Fic: After the Bombs Came

2007-08-08T23:58:29Z

Title: After the Bombs Came
Author: netgirl_y2k
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Characters: Jackie, Mickey, Rose, Nine
Warnings: N/A
Recipient: eponine119
Request: I've only seen the new series (Doctors 9-10). He's always averting the end of the world -- what if this time he can't?
Summary: The morning the world ended Jackie Tyler had a hangover.
A/N: I apologise deeply for the delay in posting

The morning the world ended Jackie Tyler had a hangover.

The previous evening had been pub quiz night, Jackie and the girls had enjoyed a few Bacardi's and now Jackie was suffering for it, her throat was dry and her head was thumping. And some bloody idiots were digging up the road right outside the flat.

Jackie rolled out of bed and shuffled over to the window intending to give the workmen piece of her mind. Half past bloody six on a Sunday morning, what sort of time was that to go digging up the estate?

She opened the bedroom window and looked out, there were no diggers on the road. What Jackie had taken to be the rumbling of road works right outside was actually a much louder booming that had been muffled by the double glazing. Looking down she could see people running frantically through the streets, arms loaded with stuff.

"Oi! What's going on?" she called down. No one answered, her demands joined the din of people crying out for their relatives and friends.

Jackie grabbed a pair of jeans and a tracksuit top, jammed her feet into a pair of trainers and pelted out of the flat and down the stairs over the strong objections of her throbbing head.

Outside the chaos seemed worse, everybody was running in different directions, most people still in their pyjamas, a few like Jackie wearing hastily pulled on clothes. People were crying out, some were carrying television sets and piles of clothes out of flats.

"What's happening?" Jackie demanded.

"Oh, Jackie!" Cath from the laundrette stopped in her tracks, wearing a dressing gown and slippers she caught Jackie by the arms. "I'm so sorry about Rose."

"Rose? What about Rose?" Jackie demanded, shaking Cath.

"One of the nukes fell on France, didn't it."

Jackie's mind raced, confused. Okay it was sad if you happened to be French but what the hell had it got to do with Rose?

She had just remembered that the last stop in Rose's fictional travels had been France when there was another boom, louder this time and followed by the crash of shattering glass.

"Oh, God. They're getting closer." Cath pulled away from Jackie and ran helter skelter across the square, dressing gown flying behind her.

"What is? What's happening? Cath!" but the other woman had gone. Jackie looked around her, pushed this way and that by the running crowd.

"Jackie!" She turned, Mickey was running towards her. His overalls were buttoned up wrong and he was stumbling over the untied laces of his boots, he'd obviously dressed even quicker than Jackie.

"Mickey! Are you alright!?"

"Yeah, fine. I got out of my flat quickly." He grabbed Jackie's hand and pulled her away from the flats, down towards the high street.

"Hang on, I can't go running off I've left the flat unlocked and all my stuff's in there!"

"We can't," Mickey tugged insistently, "they're bombing the city centre mainly but their aim is crap. They're going to open the underground stations as shelters, now come on."

Jackie was getting ready to dig her heels in and argue when another boom caused the glass in the windows of Jackie's own block of flats to shatter and fall. There weren't many people standing underneath, most people had been fleeing the buildings. Most who were below the windows managed to dodge the falling glass shards. One or two didn't, Jackie winced and then turned and bolted for the underground station, pulling Mickey along behind her.

Still running she fumbled in her the pockets of her jeans, coming up empty and remembering that she'd left her mobile back in the flat. Along with everything else she owned.

"Mickey, have you got your phone?"

"Think it's a bit late for 999," Mickey puffed, still running.

"We need to call Rose."

Mickey produced a mobile from a pocket, he pressed call without dialling the number. Jackie briefly wondered if it was weird that Mickey still had Rose on speed dial. Mickey held the phone to his ear and mouthed the word 'answer-phone' to Jackie.

"Rose, its Mickey..." Mickey trailed off. Jackie snatched the phone from him.

"Rose, it's your mother. The world's ending or something, you need to get back here and bring that big eared northern bastard with you."

With that Jackie ended the call.

*

Mad as it sounded Jackie had gotten used to when the government said there'd been a terrorist attack they really meant 'it was aliens, but we don't want to tell you.' the idea that it really was terrorists was foreign to her. Apparently the papers had been going on about a clash of civilisations for months now, Jackie felt a bit guilty for only reading the bits about big brother and the soaps.

Mickey walked over and sat down next to Jackie with his back against the stone wall. He handed her a tin with a fork in it.

"Oh, not beans again."

"You know we can only eat stuff out of tins till we find out if it's safe."

"Yeah, but you couldn't manage tinned peaches, even peas would be better than this."

"Your wish is my command," Mickey replied sarcastically.

Jackie sighed, gave up, and took a fork full of beans. "Did you make sure Jane got some?"

Jane was a heavily pregnant girl sheltering in the same underground station. Her boyfriend had gone up to the streets the week before last saying he was going to find out what was going on. Jane was convinced he was going to come back. Jackie had stopped everyone from correcting her, no sense upsetting the poor lamb in her condition.

"Tommy's sharing some of his with her."

Jackie gave up on the beans. End of days or not, there's only so many cold beans a person can be expected to eat. Mickey pulled out his mobile and looked disappointedly at the screen.

"No messages?" Jackie asked, it was a rhetorical question.

"Wouldn't know even if there was, no signal. You don't think Rose-"

"No!" Jackie didn't let him finish. Rose was alright, she had to be. Living in a crowded tube station, eating baked beans, no one to talk to but Mickey; the only thing that kept Jackie going was the knowledge that Rose was alive out there somewhere.

*

"You know all this is my fault," Mickey said one day as Jackie was flicking through the stations of the small radio they'd found in one of the kiosks. Two hundred stations and nothing but static, that was digital for you.

"Did you break the radio, or something?"

"All this, us living like this, it's my fault. That missile I sent into Downing Street, that was the start of it, everyone says."

Jackie gently took Mickey's hand. "You saved me, that night with the Slitheen, and now too."

"Yeah, rescued you to a life of baked beans and possible radiation sickness. Dead heroic, that."

"That missile was the Doctor's idea. Supposed to be a time traveller, didn't see this coming, did he? Bloody idiot."

"Still be good to see him."

Jackie grunted a sort of agreement, she thought if she ever saw him again she'd smack him right across his big gob.

*

Jackie was trying to sleep on the pile of clothes and old newspapers that passed for luxury these days. She heard what sounded a bit like an asthmatic hippo trying to pass wind, she'd been dreaming about that sound for weeks.

Something prodded her in the ribs. "Mum, wake up, mum..."

God, these dreams were getting a bit repetitive.

The prodding got more insistent. "Go away, Mickey," Jackie mumbled.

"Mum, seriously, get up..."

Jackie blinked, squinted, and then jumped to her feet engulfing her daughter in a hug. "Oh, Rose, thank God you're safe, thank God. You have to get away, just go, you don't know what's happening here..."

"Rose, have you found...Oh, there she is," that was when Jackie finally became convinced she wasn't dreaming. She might dream about Rose, but there was no chance of her subconscious conjuring up that alien git.

The Doctor was clambering up off the tracks, his box was parked right on them. It would serve him right if a train came along and flattened it. Fat chance, there hadn't been a train since the day the first bomb had fallen.

He was still grumbling at Jackie, "We've been through half the London Undergorund looking for you."

Rose was apologising, "...I didn't get your message right away, and then when I did we arrived a year too late, and then when we got the time right but didn't know where you were going to be and we went to the flat, and then...did you say Mickey was here?"

"Yeah, he's over there somewhere..." Jackie waved vaguely to her right, not wanting to let Rose out of her sight.

"I'll go find him," Rose pulled away.

"I said one, Rose," the Doctor complained in a long suffering tone of voice.

"It's just Mickey," Rose shot back, "what harm can it do."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and smiled awkwardly at Jackie. "Hello. Sorry we took so long, but we've been a bit busy, end of the world and all that."

Jackie looked sceptically at the blue police box sitting innocently on the tracks, "How are you planning on getting everybody in there, then?"

"I'm not," the Doctor said, looking at point just to the left of Jackie's ear.

"But all these people..." The people in the station, the people who wandered up the tracks, any survivors up on the surface. Bloody Hell, even if there weren't any more in London there had to be people in other parts of the world.

"Dead. In a year, all dead. Rose and I were there."

Jackie was stunned. Jane and her baby, Cath from the laundrette, what made Jackie any different from them?

Nothing except Rose.

Rose came back into view, dragging a stunned looking Mickey by the hand.

"Rickey the idiot," the Doctor said, taking Mickey by the shoulders and turning him around, "do you promise that if I take you away from here, saving your life in the process that you'll try not to muck up the timeline?"

"I, uh-"

"Good enough," said the Doctor, giving Mickey a little shove. He tumbled off the platform disappearing inside the blue box.

The Doctor and Rose scrambled down onto the tracks, both held their hands out to help Jackie down. She felt she should refuse, offer to stay here and help, or at the very least die with her planet, but instead she took Rose's hand, jumped down onto the tracks and walked into the blue box.

Bigger on the inside, well Jackie supposed it would have to be, there was no way Rose would get away with the amount of washing she brought home for Jackie to do if it was only as big as it looked.

"If the four of us have to repopulate the planet I want Mickey, there's no way I'm having big eared alien babies."

apocalyptothon @ 2007-08-08T15:30:00

2007-08-08T22:41:11Z

I am really sorry this took so long.

Title: Waiting
Author: katraven
Fandom: CSI:NY/CSI: crossover
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None, but if you like subtext, feel free to read it in there.
Warnings: There's some semi-graphic stuff about radiation poisoning, but nothing worse than what you'd see on either of the shows.
Recipient: goddess_loki (I deeply apologize for the lateness.)
Request: Middle of a cross-jurisdictional case, one of the two cities is destroyed completely (with a few survivors), and the destruction is spreading/has spread.
Summary: Bad things come to those who wait.

When he woke up that morning, he knew he could no longer ignore the constriction in his chest. He’d hoped it would be just another background symptom, one that would progress slowly and quietly, rather than doubling overnight. He’d been stupid to wait so long.
He had thrown away the phone book when it had arrived in the mail a week ago, but he began fishing through the garbage, ignoring the trash that fell on the floor. He’d barely been eating and he’d gotten no mail except for coupon mailers and the phone book, so the phone book was easy to find under a thin layer of bloody tissues and clumps of hair. Hands shaking, he flipped through the book until he found the pet stores. He found one a few blocks away that was open early, bundled up, and left for the subway station, wishing that he still had the money to spare for a cab.
He huddled to himself on the train, and the wracking cough gave him a relatively wide berth. It occurred to him that he’d probably picked up the infection on the train.
The clerk at the pet store glanced at him when he bought the antibiotics, and he mumbled something about his cat being sick. He left the store, and began the cold trek home.
----
“What kind of place has the elevators going out for two hours in the middle of January?” Danny groused.
“The same kind of place that has one-room apartments and cash rent.” Mac replied. They passed another floor, and clearly heard the introduction to a soap opera. “And thin walls.”
“Got a point there. Who found him?”
“Guy from two floors up was going down the fire escape.”
“Called in by a stranger. Never a good way to go out.”
The body was on the fourth floor landing, slumped against the outer wall of the apartment. The slightly open mouth had trickled a trail of now-dry blood. The two set to work.
“Lot of bruising.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing we might be seeing the other guy in the near future.”
“Core body temp is 99.85.” Mac remarked.
“It’s 31 degrees out.”
“Yeah. The elevator’s only been out for two and a half hours, so assuming that he didn’t just take the stairs for fun, that puts his temp at about 103 when he died.”
“That explains this.” Danny held up the paper bag he had pried out of the corpse’s hand. “Veterinary antibiotics. This could’ve just been someone who didn’t get to a hospital when he should have.”
“Doesn’t explain the bruises.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Danny opened the victim’s mouth. “Bleeding came from the gums.” He frowned. “No eyebrows.” He lifted the knit cap from the man’s head. “Nothing there, either.”
Mac unclipped a small, pen-shaped object from the body’s pockets and shone a flashlight through one end, looking through the other. He grimaced. “Danny, call Flack. We’re going to need a HazMat unit.”
“That what I think it is?” Danny asked, pulling out his phone.
“Radiation dosimeter. Our vic’s been exposed to 5.78 Sv. Fatal dosage.”
Danny let out a low whistle and turned away to speak into the cell phone. “Flack, call HazMat. Tell them we suspect the vic had radiation poisoning. ‘Kay. Thanks.” He looked at Mac. “We don’t know when exposure was, though. Those pocket dosimeters are a hassle and a half to reset—he could’ve been carrying it around for a while.”
“No. Look again at the bruising. It’s recent, but the patterns don’t look like impact bruises—too large, too dispersed. Bleeding from the gums and under the skin, hair loss—it fits."
Danny swallowed. “So now we wait.”
----
Still feeling the sting of the decontamination shower, Mac headed for the morgue.
“How’s it going in here, Sid?”
“First case of radiation poisoning I’ve seen in more than ten years. That’s exciting.” Hammerback beamed.
“You’re not kidding.”
“Why would I be?”
Mac shook his head. “Never mind. What was the COD?”
“Pneumonia.”
“Radiation poisoning depresses the immune system. It makes sense. Our vic realizes he’s gotten an infection, waited too long to get antibiotics, collapses before he gets home.”
“Have you seen the HazMat results yet?”
“I came here first.”
“Okay. Source of the radiation they found was a mix of various radioactive isotopes, mostly uranium, some plutonium, traces of other things, and according to the HazMat guys…”
----
“…the mix is pretty typical of spent nuclear fuel.”
“So, from what the landlady told us, this David Carruthers moved in 2 months ago, no mention of a job, paid cash rent, kept to himself…and also happened to be carrying spent nuclear fuel.”
The HazMat officer nodded. Flack sighed. “Fantastic.” The day was rapidly turning into a headache. After HazMat had arrived and determined that the victim—who, really, now had to be called something else, since he hadn’t actually been murdered—had been carrying a small packet of radioactive dust, the building had been evacuated, with screening and decontamination. The press hadn’t come around yet, but he’d heard that the police department had received a few inquiries. Now that the evacuation was complete, they had to prepare for entering the apartment. The elevators were working again, and HazMat had set up shop in the hallway, which had been deemed safe.
“Spent nuclear fuel?”
“Jeez, Hawkes. Don’t sneak up on me in a bunny suit, okay?”
Hawkes smiled from underneath the visor, but it faded quickly. “Sounds bad.”
“Probably is. Did you just come from HQ?”
“Yeah. They’re both okay.”
“Good.” There was inexpressible relief in that word.
“Yeah. They both have the rest of the day off to watch for symptoms, but when I left, Mac was grilling Sid and Danny was on the phone with the dosimeter manufacturer.”
“Good. Are you waiting for Stella?”
“Boo.” Stella grinned.
Flack jumped. “No more sneaking up on me, okay?”
----
The apartment was a small room with a bathroom off to one side. The couch had a blanket and pillow on it, and the only other furnishings in the room were a large metal bin and a small table next to it. Stella carefully made her way to the table, noticing the meter was taking readings for a bizarre setup, consisting of a small, blue crystal surrounded by a ring of the same radioactive powder that the victim had been carrying, all contained under a large glass bowl, all with a Geiger counter pointed at it and loudly clicking. Three small metal rulers had been placed near the crystal, presumably to measure its dimensions. She took several pictures, and then peered at the Geiger counter, confirming the reading with her own, and noting, with some interest, words stamped on in white: PROPERTY OF UNLV.
“Stella, look at this.”
Hawkes had found a map of the city, with several black dots drawn in. A few of the black dots had been overlaid with red checkmarks.
“I don’t suppose we’re going to get lucky and find out that those are restaurants he wanted to try.”
“Me neither.”
“Where was that?”
“In the bin, with about 30 pounds of radioactive material.”
“That’s really not good. What do you make of this?”
Sheldon frowned. “What is that?”
“I have no idea. It looks like one of those sugar crystals kids grow for science projects, but I somehow doubt that’s what our guy was dealing with.”
Hawkes nodded. “Take a sample of that, too. HazMat wants us out in five so that they can get all of the dirty stuff.”
Stella lifted the glass bowl and carefully put it to one side, gingerly pushed the radioactive powder towards the back of the table, then took a small blade from the evidence kit that she’d laid out on the table. She cut away a piece of the crystal and slipped it into a plastic bag. She began to pack up the kit, and noticed something on her hands. The thick gloves had a faint but distinctive blue tint at each point where she had touched the crystal. She frowned, but finished packing, took the baggie, and followed Hawkes out.
As they stepped into the hallway to wait for HazMat, she looked back down at her gloves. The blue tint was definitely there—and was it just her, or was it spreading?
“Sheldon?”
He heard the odd, suppressed worry in her voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Confirm that I’m not just seeing this.”
“The blue?”
“Well, that answers that.” She raised the bag to eye level. It was barely visible, but yes—the interior of the plastic bag was acquiring a blue tinge, spreading from the crystal.
“Take your gloves off.” Sheldon began helping her remove them, and they got the right glove off and into a nearby equipment bucket as Flack approached them.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, unconsciously echoing Hawkes’s question.
“I don’t know.”
----
“LVPD.”
“Yeah, this is Detective Mac Taylor, NYPD CSI. I need to discuss a case that we’ve determined may have a connection with Las Vegas.”
“Okay. Can you wait for a moment while I connect you to someone?”
“That’s fine.” Mac drummed his fingers on his desk. He and Lindsay had finished questioning the evacuated tenants, but so far they’d been unsuccessful at finding anyone who had any helpful information: none of them could remember friends visiting the man, or any mention of a job. Then Stella, Hawkes and Flack had returned, accompanied by a flurry of HazMat officers who had been unsuccessful in identifying the blue substance. Half of the chemistry lab was now busy trying to figure out what it was, or at least try to contain it.
“Detective Taylor, I’m Gil Grissom, the night shift supervisor. How can I help you?”
Mac glanced at the clock; it was 2:45 PM, making it nearly noon in Vegas. “Night shift? Not to be rude, but it seems a little late. Early.”
“A few loose ends. This job’s hours aren’t always what they claim to be.” Grissom sounded almost amused, rather than offended; Mac got the sense that he dealt with that question frequently enough.
“Believe me, I understand. This morning, a body got called in from Brooklyn. Upon further investigation, we determined that it wasn’t a murder, but we’ve discovered a few other suspicious things—“
----
The team had assembled in the break room, too jittery to leave. There were too many loose ends trailing from the series of scares that they’d had all morning. Adam had finally figured out that the blue crystal seemed to be inert while wrapped in aluminum foil, after a disastrous series of experiments that HazMat was still trying to clean up. Worse, several cases of radiation poisoning had been reported from hospitals around the city, all within 30 miles of points marked on the map.
“LVPD confirmed that the dosimeter and Geiger counter were taken from UNLV. They’ve ID’d Carruthers as Dr. Lawrence Widmark. He was a UNLV professor providing oversight for the Yucca Mountain investigation in northern Nevada. Took a formal trip to New York about a month ago, went missing a few weeks ago—around the time David Carruthers showed up in New York. They’re trying to find one of his colleagues, Professor Tom Gilligan, in for questioning—
”
“Wait. His name is Gilligan? And he’s a professor?”
“Yes, Danny, and I’m sure no one has ever made that joke about him before.” Mac sighed. “Stella, have you heard from Flack?”
“He said they found the radioactive powder and the crystals at two of the sites on the map. There’s talk about locking down the city if they find more.”
That hung in the air for a grim moment. “What has the lab found out?”
“The crystal seems to attach to organic substances, which makes about half of our equipment useless—anything plastic or rubber is out.” Lindsay said. “They haven’t been able to melt it, analyzing it comes up mostly inconclusive, though they think it’s some sort of silicon substance.”
“They said they’d call back once they found Gilligan. In the meantime, it’s almost six—you should all go home. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow’s not looking shorter. For now, we wait.”
----
“Dr. Gilligan, we’ve been waiting for you. We were worried you weren’t going to show up.”
Gilligan jumped. “What?” He was an unkempt man, short, with darting eyes and poor taste in ties.
Brass shrugged. “To your lecture. You graduated from UNLV, right, Warrick?” Warrick nodded. “Isn’t that a nice coincidence?”
“Oh. Of course.” Gilligan resumed scurrying towards the engineering building.
“You don’t normally teach this class, though, do you?”
“Dr. Widmark normally does, but he’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. Dr. Widmark’s absence was unexpected.”
Warrick spoke up. “But you were a friend of his, weren’t you? The two of you handle virtually the entire nuclear engineering curriculum. He never said anything?”
“Not a word. If you’ll excuse me—“
Brass dropped the casual tone. “I’m afraid we can’t, Dr. Gilligan. See, Dr. Widmark’s body turned up this morning in New York City, along with quite a collection of spent nuclear fuel, and I think you know something you’re not telling us. And if I’m right—and I’m usually right when it comes to people lying—then you’re going to be in a world of trouble if we find out that you knew he was dropping uranium all over New York.”
Gilligan stopped, quivering with a combination of fear and anger. “Fine.”
“Fine, you’ll tell us what you know, or fine, we find out on our own and charge you with any deaths that happen in the interval?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Good man.”
----
“I was doing some work for ORISE—that’s the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education—at the Nevada Test Site when I met…um, someone. I’m not going to give names, okay?”
“Okay. Keep going.”
“Yeah. Anyway, she—um, I mean—“
“Just leave it, Gilligan, one way or another we’re going to find out. You don’t have to rat anyone out if it’ll make you feel better, but we know what we’re doing, and if she’s important, we’ll find her.
“Fine. Well, she described this crystal she’d found around a development project in her hometown, one that shut down suddenly. She said she accidentally dropped a pen in this blue powder trailing from under the construction fence, and the whole pen, except for the metal part—all turned into this blue crystal, before she even picked it up. She said it was good that she didn’t, because when she finally managed to get some to analyze—she was a chemist, big fancy university, cutting edge equipment—she found out it disrupted the carbon-hydrogen bond.”
Brass frowned, looked over at Grissom, but it was Warrick who supplied the answer first. “Organic material.”
“Yeah, exactly. The development project shut down after a kid went missing—she thought it was probably that he got turned into a blue statue and the development company decided to skip town before anyone figured it out.”
“And if she discovered this dark, strangely unspecific corporate conspiracy, why didn’t your lady friend call the cops?”
“She wanted to wait until she could find out more. She was scheduled to do work at the Nevada Test site, and she brought the crystal, wrapped in tinfoil, with her. She hoped someone there would know. Day after she arrives, the crystal’s started shrinking.”
“Let me guess; she didn’t have any of this mysterious crystal when you asked to see it?”
Gilligan flushed. “No, but Larry came back from a conference in New York, and he brought back a piece of a crystal that did the same thing. And we tried some experiments. Almost every form of electromagnetic radiation slows its growth, but only ionizing radiation is powerful enough to actually make it shrink.”
“That’s the stuff that makes people sick?” Brass directed the question at Warrick, this time, who nodded.
“We don’t know how it happened. This—the lady I heard it from originally wasn’t from New York. So we started putting out feelers into the scientific community, and we found out that this is happening in almost every big city.”
At this point, there was a knock on the door, startling everyone. Brass opened the door, and Greg nodded to Grissom, who followed him outside without a word. Brass watched them leave, then closed the door. “And then what?”
“And we started telling people what we’d found out, and we started collecting what they’d found out. Larry called it ice-9, you know, like in Cat’s Cradle? Only it doesn’t actually do anything to water, since there’s no carbon—but you get my point.”
“Dr. Widmark did an amazingly effective job, Dr. Gilligan.” Grissom slipped back into the room. “I asked Greg to get me if anything changed in New York. The city’s in a state of emergency, due to all of the radioactive material they’ve found. They’re removing it now, but there are concerns about how much more remains.”
“They’re removing the uranium?” Gilligan looked horrified. “They can’t do that. The rate of growth is exponential. The larger the crystals are, the faster they’ll spread, and the more radiation will be required to stop them. Larry emailed me what he could about what he discovered, and New York is imminently—if they remove the uranium—“ Gilligan stopped mid-sentence and took a deep breath. “This—you’ll think I’m insane.”
“Oh, I really don’t think you’re ever going to change our minds on that one.” Brass said.
Gilligan glared at him. “If we don’t stop this, New York City will be completely gone in, oh, a week? I don’t know. But say a week. Two, if we’re lucky. But once it’s the size of New York City? The rest of the state will follow in three days. Massachusetts, Conneticut, Joizey—“ he sneered at Brass. “—all within another day. Canadian border in another two days, Florida in four, Mississippi River before a week. North America’s gone by March.” He paused again, taking a deep, shuddering sigh. “The only thing that’ll stop a crystal that gets to the size of New York City is an atomic bomb.”
----
“Detective Taylor, this is Gil Grissom.”
There was a long pause. “Doctor Grissom, right? I’m Detective Bonasera. Have you been following the news?”
“As best as I can, but there hasn’t been much reported.”
“As of this morning, there’ve been widespread reports of some sort of hazardous blue substance in the areas where the uranium was removed yesterday. It’s spreading across the city. Mac—Detective Taylor—lived in one of the affected areas.”
Grissom did not miss the significance of the past tense. “I’m sorry. I wish I could give you good news.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Dr. Gilligan gave us some helpful information. The blue crystal is a phenomenon that’s been showing up in a few major cities. It seems to work by converting organic material into the substance. Light, radio waves—any form of electromagnetic radiation slows it, but only ionizing radiation reverses the process. A larger intact crystal spreads faster. Dr. Widmark was one of a number of scientists who took matters into their own hands.”
“When we removed the radioactive powder yesterday, that was what was keeping it in check, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And it got worse overnight, because of the lack of lights.”
“Yes.”
Detective Bonasera was silent. “My team is missing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I stayed here overnight. I didn’t like the feeling of waiting at home. I know a few of them were in areas that evacuated, but I haven’t heard from anyone.” She sounded surprised as well as sad, as though wondering how to begin to comprehend what had happened. “The sun is rising. That’ll help.”
----
“Why not us?” Sara wondered out loud.
“What?”
“All of these cities that Gilligan listed. Las Vegas, he said there were only minimal amounts, enough to be wiped out with what he could get from NTS.”
Grissom thought for a moment. “All the lights on the strip would slow it down. More sunlight, that’s probably even more important. Maybe even some residual fallout from NTS and places like it.”
“Location, location, location.”
“For now.”
“You think it’ll reach us?”
“Los Angeles is being evacuated. New York—“ Grissom trailed off. “I wonder if Gilligan was right.”
“About the bomb?”
“Yes.” There was silence. “According to the news, they’re trying to use the collected uranium to stop it. They’re breaking off pieces with metal mallets, because it spreads less quickly in smaller pieces. It’s morning there. That’s one of the things the detective said—she told me the sun was rising.”
“Will that slow it down enough?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. For now…we wait.”

Okay, gang!

2007-08-08T21:12:27Z

Due to work and personal issues it's been a bitch for me to sit down at the computer for more than five minutes for the past week. However, tomorrow or Friday I'm going to be going over the list of fics posted to make sure that everybody who signed up got a story. More than a few people got an extension, but not that many.

In other words, if you haven't posted a story already ... *pokes you with the mod stick*

It's The Little Things That Kill

2007-08-04T22:13:32Z

Title: It's The Little Things That Kill
Author: drewbeartx
Fandom: Ugly Betty
Rating: PG for language and violence
Pairing: gen
Warnings: umm... you realize this is about an apocolypse, right? Death everywhere.
Recipient: kissmebleeding
Request: In a small home in queens five survivors try to keep from falling off the face of the earth. Daniel, Betty, the three Suarez's, and Marc. Discussion about post-apocalyptic fashion would fun.
Summary: The first time Justin killed someone, Hilda didn't let him out of her sight for days. The second time, she passed him a reload.
Notes: Many, MANY thanks to my beta, valarltd for pointing out my rather hideous POV fumbles. And I'm sorry this took so long to post; I hope it's worth the wait.

Fic: "Port in a Storm: Harbour of Arms" (Doctor Who, PG-13)

2007-08-03T02:24:42Z

Title: Port in a Storm: Harbour of Arms
Author: thegiantkiller
Recipient: cherryice
Fandom: Doctor Who
Request: “Mickey-centric, in the alternate universe. Mickey, Jake, Rose, and company fighting the end without the Doctor. Mickey/Jake or Mickey/Jake/Rose would be nice”
Rating/warnings/pairings: PG-13; implied sexuality, angst; Mickey/Jake/Rose, Rose/Ten
Notes: I haven’t seen season 3 yet, so no spoilers, but possible accidental AU? Thanks to prairiedaun for the last-minute beta.

Mickey wakes in the middle of the night, instinctively counting heartbeats between the flash and the crash, trying to gauge the distance of the storm. It’s not lightning, though, and he knows it’s not. It’s chunks of orbital debris, remnants of the battle raging above their heads day and night for the past eighteen weeks. Spaceship pieces ranging in size from a pebble to a house, all traces of the crews (human and alien) blessedly burned off on their descent through the atmosphere. Torchwood were doing their best to bring an end to the hostilities by any means available (so Rose reported, the privileges of information she earned as an employee), but thus far all attempts at negotiation had been rejected and effective weapons had not yet been developed.

Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the renewed darkness, he reaches out a hand and finds the bed too empty with only two bodies in it. Jake shifts in his sleep, muttering something indistinct. Rose is absent.

Frowning, Mickey sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He probes the floor with his toes until he feels slippers and slides them on. He ends up with one of Jake’s and one of his own. He pulls his robe from the back of a chair and puts that on too, to keep off the cold. They’ve long since stopped worrying about nudity or open doors; they have forgotten, inside this house they share, how to be embarrassed.

If he thought about it, Mickey would say that he liked it better this way, compared to those first few tiptoeing awkward months when they’d tried so hard not to intrude, not to offend. He doesn’t think about it, though, because it’s grown so natural now that he doesn’t even notice.

This is not to say that Mickey does not remember what things were like when they first moved in. Rose had been living with her parents since the connection between dimensions had been terminated. Their parental role, however, was hardly more than nominal: Pete had never known his daughter, had no experience with fatherhood, and Jackie, having been weaned from the role of mother by Rose’s own absenteeism, was now preoccupied with the new family she was starting, for all intents and purposes, from scratch. Playing “house” in Pete’s huge mansion was an idyllic fantasy, and Rose was a tolerated but unappreciated intrusion of reality. So it was that when Mickey mentioned that he and Jake were moving into a two-bedroom townhouse together, Rose had delicately fished for an invitation to crash on their couch—just for a while, to give her parents some privacy. “Stay as long as you like,” Mickey had said.

“And forget the couch,” Jake added, “you can have the second bedroom.”

Rose protested, “Oh no, I don’t want to put either of you out.”

Mickey had hesitated then, looking at Jake. Jake looked back, shrugged and quirked a smile. “It’s no trouble,” he said at last, then paused again, reaching for Jake’s hand. “We only need one.”

“Oh,” Rose had said, puzzled but polite. Then her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said again.

For the next week, as she got her stuff (what little she had in this universe that felt like her own) ready to move, and for the first couple of weeks thereafter, Mickey would catch her staring at him. He knew without asking what she was thinking. He’d wondered it himself more than once since deciding to remain in this twisted world. Who are you? Not the Mickey she knew, surely. And he wasn’t; that Mickey was never so comfortable in his own skin. He felt more at home here than he ever had in the reality that made him.

Mickey pads down the narrow corridor in his mismatched slippers to the sitting room at the far end, flinching at the tympanic crash of an aerial detonation.

He’d tried to downplay the situation at first, act as much like his old self as he could remember how. He’d seen how fragile she was after her last (and probably final) encounter with the Doctor on that Norwegian beach (Bad Wolf again . . . he thought they’d solved that puzzle, why did it keep coming back?), and feared upsetting her further. Jake, being more sensible, had no patience for his pussyfooting. They had nothing to be ashamed of, he argued, and denying their relationship wouldn’t change the fact of its existence. The easiest way to get Rose comfortable with it was to act like they were comfortable with it themselves. And it worked, too: by the end of the first month her voice no longer faded to a mutter when they were both around, and her self-conscious fidgeting decreased significantly. The tension had continued to ease over the following months, until the night that changed everything.

That night, like tonight, Mickey woke suddenly, but that time it was a presence, not an absence, that felt out of place, and soft sobbing rather than the boom of “thunder” that disturbed his dreams. He’d pushed up on his elbows, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes, heart in his throat until he recognized the figure silhouetted in the doorway. Her shoulders heaved as she approached the foot of the bed; her feet made no sound on the carpet. “Rose?” he asked, nudging Jake awake. “What’s the matter?”

She trembled with the force of another shuddering sob, raising her hands to scrub at her face with the sleeves of her pyjama top. “Oh, love, don’t,” Jake said, sitting up with arms outstretched. “Come here.” Apparently this permission was exactly what she’d been waiting for, for she crawled with awkward grace onto the bed to position herself between them, throwing herself against Jake’s torso and weeping into his bare collarbone. He stroked her hair and murmured “it’s okay” into her forehead. Mickey, at a loss for what to do, reached out hesitantly to lay a hand on her shoulder, then leaned in to wrap his arms around her. Jake freed his own arms to enclose them both, and they rocked there until all three drifted off to sleep with salt drying on their cheeks.

When the boys woke up that morning, Rose was already downstairs. There was hot coffee on the table, and she was attempting to make pancakes. Jake quickly took over this task so that only the first skillet’s worth got burnt. None of them mentioned the night before. None of them needed to. She’d slept in their bed every night since. It was a tight fit, three people in a double divan, but the inevitability of physical contact had become one of the arrangement’s chief appeals. At first it was casual, platonic, but eventually Mickey and Jake’s romantic life had reasserted itself, and now that too was shared.

Mind returning to the present, he reaches the limen of the sitting room and pauses there with his hand on the doorframe. It takes him a moment to spot her, huddled against the arm of the sofa with her knees to her chest and a blanket around her shoulders. He says her name and she turns her head to blink up at him. “Hi, Mickey.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, coming around to sit next to her.

“Bad dreams,” she replies, and he doesn’t probe. Instead he follows her gaze out the window, past the wind-shaken hedge to the sky, watching stars peek out through shreds in the scudding clouds.

It’s July, but there was frost on that hedge the past two mornings. Weather forecasters were blaming it on a temporary failure of the Gulf Stream, but nobody believed them anymore. That afternoon Mickey had overheard a woman discussing it with the androgynously-dressed teen at the supermarket checkout. The kid suggested that it was from all the debris, sucked down from the orbiting battlefield by Earth’s gravity, and opined that it was just like the end of the Cretaceous, when dust from the meteor impact choked the atmosphere and froze the dinosaurs. Whatever it was, it made the crowded bed all the more comfortable.

“I just keep thinking,” Rose says eventually, “even though I know it’s irrational, I keep thinking ‘he’ll come’. ‘Cause with all that’s going on, how can he not? And I know he won’t know me, and I probably won’t know him either—his face, I mean, who knows what sort of face he’d have here—but I feel like I’ve got to keep a watch out for him. ‘Cause he must be on his way, he must. Because I know this world is different, and I can understand a world without me in it—I know for a fact there’s one out there right now. But I just can’t imagine a world without the Doctor.”

Mickey thinks this over. “It’s a strange thought, that, true enough. But you’ve got to remember, we did live in a world with no Doctor. Lived there for years with no idea until that whole mannequin thing. So maybe there is a Doctor in this world, and we just don’t know it yet. But just ‘cause he’s there don’t mean he’s the same man we remember. He might not care about Earth, or humans, or saving people. For all we know the Time War never happened here, and the place is crawling with Time Lords. He might be at home now, safe and cozy with a family and everything.”

“He might be happy.”

“Might be.”

“That’s a nice thought.”

“And we’ve got a family here.”

“That’s a nice thought too. You and me and Jake.”

“And your mum and Pete and Baby Replace-o.”

Rose giggles and Mickey opens his arms for her to snuggle against him, which she does with a contented sigh. They wince in unison at another crash, too close for comfort, then get up and retreat hand-in-hand to the bedroom. “But what if he does come?” Rose asks as they slide back under the covers. “What if he comes but it’s too late and this Earth is already gone? I haven’t seen this world’s future; for all I know this could be it, the end of humanity. What if my Doctor finds a way, and we’re all dead? What will he think?”

“He’ll think . . . he’ll be devastated to find you’re gone, but he won’t regret looking for you, because at least he’ll know—somehow—that you loved him to the end, and that you found the strongest port you can get in a storm like this: a safe harbour, sheltered by hearts and arms that love you.”

“There’s a metaphor. But why am I the ship? I love you guys too, shouldn’t I be a seawall or something?”

“A reef,” says Jake sleepily, “full of slippery little fishes.” He pounces suddenly and attacks Rose with tickling fingers, nearly knocking Mickey off the far edge of the bed.

Between the cold crashing outside and the warm laughter within, no human ear could have detected the eerie throb of a materializing TARDIS.

Fic: My End of Days (Scrubs, Gen)

2007-08-03T01:57:25Z

Title: My End of Days
Author: charashi
Fandom: Scrubs
Rating: PG-ish?
Warnings: The apocalypse? And some spoilers for seasons 1-5 of Scrubs.This takes place at some vague point during season five.
Recipient: misachan
Request: Oh, great, JD thinks, now the Janitor is gonna blame me for the rain of frogs, too.
Summary: The end comes to Sacred Heart.
Word Count: 6371
Notes: I'm so, so sorry this is so late! I have a variety of excuses, but this is neither the time or the place, so, I'm sorry. Mad thanks to 0lesserknown0 and emeraldparallax for their lovely late-night betas. Also thanks to the creators of all the things that are quoted/referenced in this fic, among them Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, J.K. Rowling and William Goldman and of course to Bill Lawrence for making Scrubs, which I do not own.

(When you work in a hospital, you see a lot of weird things.)

Fic: Survival of the Fittest (X-Files, Gen)

2007-08-02T04:58:55Z

Title: Survival of the Fittest
Author: amothea
Fandom: X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1,600
Recipient: caitn
Request: Investigating rumors/sightings of signs of the Apocalypse.
Summary: While following a rumor Mulder and Scully end up in Texas just in time to witness the end of the world.
Author Notes: Written for the apocalyptothon challenge. Any and all errors are mine.

FIC: "The Nowhere Dance" (SGA, PG-13)

2007-08-02T03:03:25Z

Title: The Nowhere Dance
Author:slodwick
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Rodney
Recipient: alizarin_nyc
Request: The Atlantis expedition returns to a devastated earth to see if there's anyone to save. (You pick the method/villain responsible for earth's downfall.) Most importantly, Atlantis folks learn a lot about themselves, each other and what/who they left behind.
Summary: The story of the people who went into the Stargate, and never came out.

You Only Live Through An Apocalypse Once [Doctor Who, Star Trek: Voyager, Harry Potter]

2007-08-02T01:15:47Z

Title: You Only Live Through An Apocalypse Once
Author: pie_is_good
Fandom: Doctor Who, Star Trek: Voyager, Harry Potter, and an original character
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Warnings: Nothing, unless the word 'balls' and other cursing offends you. And if it does, sorry for that last sentence.
Recipient: katraven
Request: Not merely the end of the world, or the end of the universe, but the end of all worlds, all universes. Doctor Who, crossed with any (and as many) of the other fandoms as you can go through without breaking your brain.
Summary: All Logan wanted out of the Apocalypse was a decent cup of coffee before it was over.
Author's Note: This fic is the apocalypse from the point of view of an original character. I believe it's easily understandable even if you don't know some of the fandoms. I hope that my recipient enjoys it! Thanks to semirose for the quick beta since I was a bit slow with this as a pinch hitter.

Logan was relatively certain apocalypses weren’t supposed to be funny.

Five Things Jack Never Expected (BTVS)

2007-08-02T01:11:14Z

Title: Five Things Jack Never Expected (or, Thanks a Ton, Apocalypse)
Author: odestructogirlo
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13 (for explosions, undead, a few curses, etc.)
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Um, apocalypse? Some curses (probably less than ten). Off-screen implied deaths. (And possibly contagious chronic lateness.)
Recipient: prncssflutterby
Request: Reverse "The Zeppo" episode, show POV of others characters during this story just not all Xander's POV like the episode. Include Jack O'Toole. (It has Jack, and the end of “The Zeppo”. I’m really hoping it’s kind of what you wanted. Trust me, the Serenity fic was getting so depressing I couldn’t even read it to edit it.)

Summary: Jack O’Toole. The apocalypse. BFF for (un)life.

Back in middle school, or maybe even further, when kids like Xander Harris were playing at being the X-Men, saving the world, Jack O’Toole was stealing those kids’ lunch money.

If he used his imagination for a game, which wasn’t often, it was more of a… mundane imagining. Cowboys and Indians, or Cops and Robbers. Sometimes, when he was feeling really creative, it was Robber Cowboys fighting Indian Cops.

The point of this anecdote is to say that Jack never thought about ending the world himself, because he couldn’t even picture others doing it. His plans of mayhem, such as they were, went no further than intimidating others, stealing things, and blowing stuff up (mainly the school, but he was open to suggestions). The whole “raising the dead” thing was more of an anomaly for Jack than it would have been for anyone else.

The thing is, of course, that you don’t have to intentionally start the apocalypse. You do a few little things, the other guy ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and apocalypse, always the mistress of opportunity, steps in.

In this case, “stepping” is more of an “exploding violently, and with monsters”.

1. Jack hadn’t expected anyone (well, maybe excepting Harris) to be in the school so late. So when he heard the sounds of a fight, and a should that sounded a lot like “Aim for the head!” he felt a momentary regret over his bomb placement. Sounded like they were right in the blast zone. Of course, being dead himself, he didn’t feel too much regret.

When the sound of the explosion (a much less impressive sound than he had hoped, he noted with disappointment) was followed by some sort of…. roaring screeching thing, he turned and ran. He may be dead, but he sure as hell was a lively sort of dead, and there was no point in tempting fate.

In his (he would later insist) “manly retreat for tactical reasons,” he nearly missed the fact that he was being outrun by a giant dog, three vaguely familiar girls, and the school librarian (of course, he couldn’t be sure it was the librarian, never having spent much, or any, time in the library). Knowing that getting away safely from any sort of animal (or cop) consists mainly of running faster than the slowest person with you, he ran faster.

He definitely didn’t believe it when the people jumped into a stoner van and got ready to take off. He started to yell for them to wait, more out of habit than anything else, but they actually stopped (more paused, really) so he could jump in. Surprised, he took the blonde’s hand, and the car started to move even before the door was shut.

He looked out the back window as they drove away from the school. He may not have turned to salt (what, you think an Irish boy doesn’t know his Biblical references?), but the place definitely looked like it was being smited. He rethought that, deciding that it definitely looked like hell. Not the “dude, you look like hell” hangover, or the “dude, you look like hell” just risen from the dead. More of an actually engulfed in flames, terrifying and unfamiliar shapes emerging. Almost idly, he wondered if Harris had been in the school. He was pretty sure he didn’t care.

2. Another thing Jack hadn’t expected was to get himself press ganged into serving in what looked like a never ending battle. Going on two years, and he was pretty sure he’d fought about a million bad guys. There was some cracked out Sisterhood of Jeeves, monsters that looked like something out of a bad acid trip, and vampires.

Vampires, Giles had explained to him in about five seconds, before Jack found himself with a stake in hand, were dead. And evil. And evil because they were dead (Jack wasn’t really sure of which was the cause and which was the effect. He was pretty sure English people were supposed to make more sense, not less).

Not dead like him, Faith had added. They were pretty sure that Jack had a soul, and at any rate, they needed fighters. Jack was also pretty sure that they didn’t want to spare the energy to take him down was something, too. Well, maybe Willow wanted to, as a sort of revenge or something (though what he had done to her, he couldn’t even pick out from his years of bullying. Probably nothing too bad, he reasoned, or he’d remember it.).

But yes, their rule was that souls were important, and they didn’t kill things with souls. This was before they had needed to fight any humans, back when they were only fighting a seemingly endless string of vampires, and snake things, and superstrong people with giant heads.

3. Jack hadn’t expected to enjoy Cleveland much. It was supposed to be less of a monster (they were all generic to him) stronghold than the other hells. So he was excited for that, a little.

But no, the highlight of that particular sidetrip had been MrG getting into an argument with some old English guys (who must have, what, swum to America? Jack had meant to ask), and it ended with Summers punching one in the face. She had actually laughed, which scared even Jack, (because when people who spend all their time moping and not talking laugh, it’s fucking terrifying) and the end result was lots of supplies. And much nicer old people.

The world was in shambles, with more hell busting out all over the globe, but it looked like the tide was turning.

Of course, the real danger would always end up being people, not monsters. Now, Jack was suspicious of other people by nature. He wouldn’t hesitate to screw someone over, so he always assumed the worst of everyone. It was usually a good idea. But he had mainly been trying to anticipate attacks from people doing things he would do—stealing shit, blowing up shit, beating up… shit. But powerful people? The ones who were important and supposed to be responsible for everyone else?

He’d thought they would know better.

4. Jack never expected to be finding the bright side of nuclear fallout. Hadn’t even known there was one. But the great thing about radiation sickness, he drunkenly elaborated to some increasingly wary campmates, was that there was less food for the monsters.

Regardless of how creeped out you were by Jack, most everyone agreed with him. There weren’t any more annoying bugs, that was nice, although there were always reports of giant roaches. Not ones you could ride, unless you were really small, but chicken-sized ones that could feed a family for a few days.

Jack was secretly hoping to find some mutants, with like, superpowers and stuff. Faith said that it was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard, and she may have had a point (even though he wanted humans with natural powers, not whatever the hell magic stuff she had going on). Anyway, once he realized that they were shooting pretty much anything that moved on sight (mostly things that weren’t human, but a few that looked it), he pretty much let that idea drop.

He definitely kept looking at the bodies when he had cleanup duty, though.

5. Jack hadn’t expected the apocalypse to be so… pretty awesome. It was a lot like being in high school, but with none of the boring parts. He had free run of anywhere he wanted, got to shoot monsters, and even if the world was going to shit, he was pretty convinced of his own well being.

It’s probably pretty hard to kill a man who’s already dead. Especially since, out of everyone at the camp, there were only three people who weren’t currently suffering from radiation sickness. Apparently, every nation known to have nukes (and a few that weren’t) shooting them off in what they were sure was self defense can really mess up the environment. And even though the slayers weren’t really suffering yet, he could see that it wasn’t much longer before they were sick, too. They were moving slower, their bodies overworked with the effort of repairing the damage every day. Hell, if the disease didn’t kill them, some vampire probably would get lucky.

Jack was pretty excited, to be honest. “The Last Man on Earth!” “The Man Nothing Could Kill!” Yeah, he was badass. He was going to be king (of what, he wasn’t quite sure). He was almost disappointed that he couldn’t figure out how to bring anyone else back.

He was taking a walk around what he had decided to call “Jack’s Castle” when he almost ran into Willow. She wasn’t looking too good—although, a damned sight better than most people—but the girl she was in deep conversation with looked fine. Jack grinned. He’d always known Willow was into girls (he actually hadn’t, but he was totally going to take credit for knowing, when she came out).

Jack edged closer, hoping to hear their conversation, and maybe see some making out.

“So it’ll be better?”
“You know that’s not how it works.”
“Just different.”
“Right. You should try to be as exact as possible.”

Willow started to cough, and the other girl stood up, alarmed.

“I’m not a medical professional! I don’t know how to deal with this!” She crouched down, patted Willow awkwardly on the back. “You need to say it.”

“I wish. I wish that whatever happened that day, back in the library, the day the floor exploded. It didn’t happen. And Xander and Oz. And Oz and Xander didn’t die. They’d have helped. And that none of this happened.”

Willow kept on coughing, harder, and Jack almost felt pity for her. Poor girl. The world’s not going to change, wishing doesn’t help.

“Done."

((Summary of Lateness—I started to read fic last night, and I (stupidly) assumed it was people in like, Australia posting. So I decided that the rest of 24 hours was enough time to completely change directions. And I get on the train today, and my July monthly ticket isn’t valid, because it isn’t July anymore. SO yes, big pile of dumb over here. So sorry.))