Emily64Cooper's Journal

A Different Perspective

2019-11-19T04:59:19Z

Title: A Different Perspective
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Tommy/Jude
Summary: "I think you need to do this... without me to weigh you down. You need to go to London without me." AU for the series finale. Oneshot.
Author's Note: I don't know what it says about me that Tommy's headspace is easier for me to get into than Jude's, but here we are. Takes place during the proposal scene in 4x13, "London Calling".

“You wanna come to London with me and we can shack up together?” She asks. She’s almost joking when she says it, a teasing lilt to her voice, but he can hear the undercurrent of truth in her question.

Tommy looks at her, then, really looks at her. He has never loved another person the way he loves her, this he knows to be true. And just as vehemently, he knows that he will never love another person again the way he loves her. She’s it for him. The One. Capital letters and everything. If he has to move to London to be with her, then so be it. He’d follow her anywhere. He meant it when he told her, almost a year ago to the day, that he wanted all of her with him forever, and despite their roadblock that was New Brunswick, that hasn’t changed.

These thoughts race through his mind in a split second, all at once, almost not giving him enough time to comprehend them. He thinks of their time apart, how lonely and broken he was. He thinks of what Jamie had said to him earlier, how their split had nearly killed her. And he vows never to let that happen again. Ever. He should make this permanent. He should ask her to marry him.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it before. The week before Tristan’s call, he’d even perused a shop - online, of course, to avoid any paparazzi attention - and had a general idea in mind. He figured maybe he’d ask in a year or two, give her time to at least start her 20s before settling down. But now, looking at her in this empty restaurant, the drama of the past year and the fears of the upcoming move to London laid out before them, he thinks he should ask her. He doesn’t have a ring or anything but he can work with that. He can keep her with him.

He opens his mouth to ask her then, but that thought gives him pause. If they get married, it can’t be about that. It can’t be about keeping them together, about his fears that she’ll wisen up and leave him for good. And, god, it certainly can’t happen now. Not after the basement trauma, so fresh she hasn’t even sung the full song yet. Not now, when she’s 18, and young, and just about to really soar. Because her remixed album is beyond good and that album and this recording deal are going to skyrocket her to the stratosphere. And she wants that, even if she doesn’t always say it. And he wants that for her, wants her to have those experiences.

She’s young. She’s so young. He forgets that; it often seems like she’s the older of the two of them. But she’s not, she’s still a teenager even, and marriage and settling down should rightfully be the furthest thing from her mind. And Tommy feels ready, but is he really? He’s not convinced. To settle down? Absolutely. He’s had a wild life, starting as far back as he can remember. He's been away from home for fifteen years already. He wants some peace, and he doesn’t think that's asking too much. But Jude hasn’t had that, he reminds himself. She’s lived at home, with at least her big sister if not her loving, supportive parents for her entire life. The craziest thing she’d ever done had been her arrest that time with Patsy, and even that was nothing.

She’s barely lived, he thinks with a start. She hasn’t even had a life to settle down from. He can’t ask her to do this. Hell, he can’t let her do this.

He lets go of the wrapper he’d absentmindedly started twisting into a ring and watches as it falls gently on the table. It doesn’t make a sound when it lands but he hears it as if it had been a ton of bricks. It sounds like finality.

“No,” he says on a sigh. He smiles gently at her - she frowns back at him, appropriately put off - and it’s all he can do to keep his eyes from tearing. “I think that, um, maybe you should do this alone.”

She opens her mouth as if to say something but nothing comes out for a few moments. “What are you saying, Tommy?” She asks slowly.

He hears a dark tone to her voice and he knows that she thinks he means to end them. Maybe he does. He doesn’t know. But he knows he can’t go with her. If they want this to ever work, to really work, he can’t be the one to hold her back. He just doesn't want to let her go either.

He has to face his fears and just tell her how he feels. He owes her that. After New Brunswick, the least he can give her is that.
“I don’t want this... us, to end, Jude. Ever.”

“Me neither,” she responds quickly.

He smiles at her and the action gives him enough pause to let the words get stuck behind his teeth. He exhales, reminds himself that he is trying to be honest for once in his life, and presses on.

“I love you. And, someday, when the time is right, I'm gonna ask you to marry me.” He smiles softly at her intake of breath, takes a moment to revel in the knowledge that he’s quite literally taken her breath away, seals the feeling away, and continues. “That’s what I want for us.”

“Me too,” she says quickly.

He smiles at her, a real, full smile, and lets the sentiment steel him for what he’s about to say. “But I think we have some growing up to do before we’re ready for that. You know almost everything now. About my past. But if we’re ever really gonna have a shot at this, I, um, need to deal with it.”

She nods slowly, once, agreeing without pushing him in the way that only she can.

“Jude,” he continues, meeting her eyes, “You're so young. You've barely lived. This would be an amazing opportunity for you, for your music. You are going to be a superstar… and I think maybe you need to have the adventures an 18-year-old superstar deserves to have."

"You're saying I'm immature?" she questions at a deadpan.

He can practically see the steam pouring out of her ears and knows he needs to choose his words very carefully here. "No, girl. I'm saying I am." She blinks at him and he can tell she doesn't fully understand. "You're... inexperienced. I think you need to do this... without me to weigh you down. You need to go to London without me.”

They break eye contact, then, each breathing heavily as they try to reign themselves in. Tommy simultaneously feels like he’s being crushed to death and like he’s weightless, but as the words had tumbled out, he’d only become more convinced that this was the right path for them. Maybe they can come back together in a year or two and be whole, be ready for each other. But that’s just not where they are right now, and although it kills him, he knows they need this in order to find a successful future together.

Jude, for her part, hasn’t said much since he started speaking and he wonders if her thoughts are as turbulent as his. She doesn’t cry, though, just sits there and thinks, and he takes that as a sign that he isn’t as far off with his assessment of their relationship as he could have been. When she does speak, finally, after what feels like a lifetime, she doesn’t protest, and it’s that more than anything that lets him know he made the right decision tonight, with her, for once in his life. Instead, she asks simply, “so, what now?”

Tommy wishes he knew.

Their food comes but neither are really in the mood to eat. He only manages a spoonful of his soup and he watches her push an errant tomato around her plate. What now, indeed? When the answer finally comes to him, halfway through what would have been the main course, he hates it instantly, but knows it’s his only option.

He clears his throat gently, mostly just to get her attention. “That, um, nurse that you found in New Brunswick? She recommended someone.”

“For your mom?” She questions.

He clears his throat again, this time embarrassed. “No, um, for me. A psychologist.”

“Oh,” Jude says, eyes going wide. He wishes he could read her mind, to know what she’s thinking, if she thinks he’s crazy for proposing this or if she thinks he’s too broken to be fixed, then promptly decides he doesn’t want to know.

She lays her hand over his and he’s startled. She squeezes gently. “I’m proud of you.”

He almost breaks down then and there but pulls himself together. Instead, he squeezes her hand back and flashes her a tight smile. He can count on one hand the amount of times anyone has ever said that to him, and coming from her, it’s worth its weight in gold.

Tommy pays their bill and brings her home, Big Lou following them in his car down every side street. Their ride is as quiet as their dinner had been. She fiddles with the radio a bit and stares out the window. He tries to subtly memorize the contours of her profile, the elegance of her features in the moonlight and still maintain enough focus to drive. They’re at a stoplight three blocks from her house when she grasps his arm. “Wait,” she says.

He feels hope blossom in his chest and tries desperately to quell it.

“My house is still a zoo of notepads and cameras,” she says. He doesn’t understand and waits for her to continue. “We should go back to your apartment.”

His mind immediately kicks into overdrive. There are a million things he wants to say all at once and he can’t move his mouth fast enough to catch up with his brain. “Jude, I-“

She surprises him with her kiss, but the second it finally registers, he puts his all into it. These tokens of affection that used to feel endless are now numbered and dwindling and he’ll be damned if he lets another second go to waste.

“Let’s go to your place,” she says breathlessly when they finally come up for air. She cradles his face in her hands and brushes over his cheekbones with her thumbs. “Let’s say a real goodbye.”

After, they lay together, not an inch of space between them. “What does this mean for us, Tommy?” She breathes into his chest. “I don’t want to lose you, but I can’t ask you to wait for me.”

“I have waited years for you before, Jude. I can do it again.”

“I might be a while,” she says, her voice small.

He kisses her hair and does his best to put on a brave face. Inside, he feels like dying. “It’s okay, girl. We’ve got time.”

It’s a while before she speaks again. When she does, her voice is thick with emotion. “Thank you, for knowing what I needed before I did. You always have.”

He doesn’t respond. He’s not sure he could, even if he knew what to say. Instead, he swallows thickly, then kisses her deeply. He’s always been better at expressing himself physically then emotionally, so he does his best to put everything he’s feeling into his kiss.
He thinks she gets it.

She pulls back and he can feel her tears on his cheeks. “I love you,” she says.

He hates how much that sounds like goodbye.

You Were Born

2019-10-31T21:08:38Z

Title: You Were Born
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Tommy/Jude
Summary: “'She’s so beautiful,' he said, tracing a finger over her cheek. He leaned back and kissed Jude gently. 'Like her mama.'” Post-finale. Oneshot.
Author's Note: This ship has been my OTP for years. Every once in a while I fall back down the Instant Star rabbit hole and I have a fic or two come to mind. This is the result of the most recent spiral.

The song used is "You Were Born" by Cloud Cult. You may recognize it from an episode of How I Met Your Mother.

“My arms were made to hold you,
So I will never let you go
Cause you were born”

“And here I thought I was the only girl you sang for anymore,” Jude said softly. She leaned against the doorframe, wrapped in a terrycloth robe, eyelids heavy from sleep. She had woken to a half-empty bed and followed his voice down the hallway until she found him.

“Sorry, Big Eyes. You’re gonna have to share that privilege from now on,” Tommy grinned up at her.

“With her? I think I can get used to that.” Jude responded. She moved to sit beside him on the bench. She tucked her head against his back, so she was able to look over his shoulder and reached a hand toward the bundle in his lap. “How is she?” The baby blinked up at them, wide-eyed and alert.

“She’s fine. She woke up maybe twenty minutes ago. I think she was hungry.”

“You could have woken me up. I would’ve-“

“Girl, relax,” he chuckled, “I got her. You need the extra sleep.”

“No, I’m fine.”

They sat there quietly for a few moments, staring at their little girl, reveling in her very existence. There were so many times throughout their lives together that had made them wonder if they would ever reach this point. Tommy felt like he had built up too much bad karma with the mistakes of his youth to ever deserve something so perfect to watch over.

“She’s so beautiful,” he said, tracing a finger over her cheek. He leaned back and kissed Jude gently. “Like her mama.”

Jude smiled back at him. “She’ll have all the boys after her,” she said teasingly, “or girls.”

“Oh!” Tommy scoffed, “that will be the end of me for sure.”

“Just wait until she’s 15 and in love with her 22-year-old producer.”

His eyes went wide and he blew out a breath. “Remind me to apologize to your dad again. For the rest of our lives.”

Jude chuckled quietly. The baby gurgled in response. “Is there more to it?” She asked with a yawn.

“Hm?”

“The song.”

He smiled and chuckled quietly. “Some.”

“Can I hear it?”

“It’s not finished.”

“Tommy.”

He looked down at his little girl and just marveled at the sight of her. “Hi, baby,” he said softly. She yawned, bringing her little arms into her chest and then out again.

He looked at Jude then, his wife, the woman who was now the mother of his child, and thought about the gift she had given him, the incredible little person drifting in and out of sleep in his arms. Who was he to deny her anything? “Okay.”

He glanced at Jude again, then looked back at the baby and began to sing:

“Love your mother
Yeah, she’s a good one
She’ll build you armor,
Keep you warm as a hen
The stars may fall
The rains may pour
But I will love you evermore
Cause you were born
To make this right
Cause you were born
To chase the light
You were born”

He stopped, startled, when he felt Jude’s tears hit his back. “Jude-“

“No, it’s okay,” she said as she dried her tears on his shirt, “I love it, Tommy. She’s gonna love it.”

“I love you.”

She leaned around and kissed him. “I love you,” she replied, running a hand over his cheek.

They watched the baby silently for a few minutes as she drifted back into a peaceful sleep. Tommy gingerly repositioned her into his arms and lifted her into the bassinet. Jude double-checked the monitor, then they both said their goodnights and tiptoed out of the nursery and back to their room to settle into bed together. Jude was almost asleep when he spoke again.

“You should record it,” he said quietly.

“Tommy,” Jude warned, sitting up to face him. She hadn’t recorded anything professionally in some time, and she didn’t intend to, especially now that they had a newborn. He knew that. She played still, even recorded raw and uncut using their home equipment, but she hadn’t been with a label in a while. It was, at times, a sore subject between them.

He had the decency to look sheepish. “I know, I didn’t mean it like that. Just…don’t you think she’d like a song from her parents?”

He had been thinking often, since Jude told him she was pregnant, about his own parents. He had so much love and adoration for his infant daughter—he had since the moment he found out about her—that he couldn’t begin to understand how his parents had treated him the way they had. His mother hated him; she never had a kind word for him. He had only felt a sort of guilty relief when she eventually died. As for his father, he had nothing from him but his name. No memories, no heirlooms, no idea what he even looked like, and Tommy didn’t care to know. He couldn’t imagine, and he would not allow, his little girl to ever feel that way. And there was no better way, for him or for Jude, to immortalize how they felt about her than in a song.

Jude eyed him warily, but her gaze quickly softened. He knew that she knew exactly what he was thinking. She always did. Still, she shook her head.

“It’s your song to her, Tommy,” she said gently, “not mine.”

“It’s not finished,” he reminded her. He motioned to her nightstand, where she always kept a notebook filled to the brim with half finished song lyrics. “I know you’ve written for her too.”

Jude sighed.

Of course she’d written about the baby. She and Tommy always dealt best with their emotions by channeling it into her music, just as he’d once advised her. He’d seen her sing little melodies to her growing bump throughout her entire pregnancy. He’d even occasionally thrown in a lyric or two when he heard her get stuck, and every night, he’d seen her write down whatever she’d come up with in her journals.

Finally, he watched her exhale a shaky breath.

“Okay,” she said at last, pulling the journal out of her nightstand, “sing it again”.

She scribbled down the lyrics he’d sung then frantically flipped through her mostly full journal, pausing at a certain page. She ran a thumb over the words. He watched, uncertain. “This might fit,” she said finally, handing him the journal.

Tommy looked from the journal back to her, recognizing the lyrics she had shown him. “Yeah,” he responded, voice thick with emotion, “this is perfect”.

“I didn’t know how to put it into words then. I don’t think I could have,” she said. “But now that she’s here…”

“You’re ready now?”

“Yeah. I’m ready now.”

Jude’s mom had died just two months before she was due. They were never that close. Jude and her dad had connected through music, but Victoria didn’t have the same admiration for it. Then, Victoria had run off with her divorce lawyer, and her relationship with her daughter had fractured even more. They only really reconciled when Jude told her she was pregnant. Jude had told Tommy that she was looking forward to having her mother around. Her death had devastated Jude, and he knew that the only thing that had pulled her through had been their little girl.

He watched as she closed her eyes. He felt like he could hear the words shifting in her head, molding to fit the melody he’d created, and when she began to sing, it was as if her lyrics had always been a part of his song, like the two pieces were always meant to come together. It was them.

“Oh my precious, oh my love,
When they come to take me
I will hold you from above
I don’t know why we’re here,
And I don’t know how
But I’m here with you now,
I am here with you now
Cause you were born
To change this life
Cause you were born
To make this right
Cause you were born
To chase the light.”

Ficlet: Fight

2016-10-17T05:40:01Z

Title: Fight
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Anakin/Padmé

Prompt: “Star Wars, Any female, warrior" at Comment-Fic

It's not that she can't fight. In fact, she's a pretty good shot with a blaster. She's fought her way out of battles here and there. In her youth, as Queen of Naboo, she'd taken self-defense courses with her staff, and those courses had been put to good use. She fought right alongside the Jedi in the Clone Wars.

To Padmé, none of that counts anymore. This is the real battle. She can feel Anakin slipping away from her, slipping away from the light side of the force little by little. Something in him broke when his mother died and she hasn't been able to fix it.

This is the fight she has always been preparing for. She turns to Obi-Wan, trying to enlist him in her battle to save her husband from himself. She tries everything she can. She uses all of the weapons in her arsenal. She begs him to open up to her, to let her back in, to fight his demons together.

When she finds out about his turn to the dark side, she can hardly believe it. She needs to know for herself. This is it, the final battle, the one that changes everything, she knows. So she takes a ship and flies to Mustafar to try to convince him to stop, to come back to her.

Even the toughest warrior loses some battles.

Untitled

2016-05-25T20:12:23Z

Title: Untitled
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Denny/Izzie

Summary: “This is good, Izzie. This is five-star restaurant and fancy jewelry kind of good.”
Author's Note: Drabble, with a possibility of future expansion. AU in which both Burke/Karev and Hahn get their hearts.

Izzie slipped into the room, a giant smile on her face, excitement in her eyes. “They just left,” she said, coming to stand beside him, “they just left the other hospital with your brand new heart, Denny.”

He smiled back at her, his eyes watering. How could he possibly put into the words the elation he felt? Here was this woman beside him, the most beautiful, stubborn woman he had ever known, telling him that she was going to give him a brand new heart. For the first time in five years, he could dream. He could make his own decisions, his own choices. For the first time in five years, tomorrow was a distinct possibility. How could he explain to her the overwhelming freedom she was gifting him with, the impossible hope for a life, a future, and a happy one at that? “Izzie,” he sighed simply.

But she knew. In a word, in the tone of his voice, she knew exactly what he was feeling. So she leaned over and kissed him hard, kissed him senseless, pouring everything she could into him and feeling it back again, until he had to pull away for lack of oxygen. “I’m taking you out after I get out of here,” he said after he’d regained his breath. “This is good, Izzie. This is five-star restaurant and fancy jewelry kind of good.” Izzie smiled at him, a radiant smile that he’d come to think was just for him, and it struck him that he wanted to make her smile like that for the rest of his suddenly extended life.

So he’d had some time to think about it, when he squeezed her hand tightly and whispered “marry me” moments before they wheeled him into the OR.

Lips of an Angel

2015-03-04T02:33:44Z

Title: Lips of an Angel
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: One night, Ezra is sitting on his New York City fire escape when he gets a call from Aria, his past love whom he hasn't heard from in years. His girlfriend sleeps peacefully in the next room.

Author's Note: Songfic to Hinder's "Lips of an Angel". Written for L.J. McMahon.

Honey why you calling me so late?
It's kinda hard to talk right now.

Ezra sat on his fire escape, his feet resting a few steps below the landing. He held a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. His phone lay beside him. Since moving to New York, this fire escape had become his safe haven, a place he could go to escape everyone and everything. Watching the flickering city lights brought him a kind of peace that he hadn't known had since those nights in apartment 3B.

There was a sharp knock at the window before it opened. "You coming to bed anytime soon?" She sounded defeated. Ezra wondered if she'd picked that up from him or because of him.

"Not yet, Ang," he replied.

Ezra heard her sigh as she walked away. Feeling guilty, he quickly downed the rest of his scotch. He'd never been an avid drinker before moving back to New York, but things had been different then.

His phone buzzed beside him and he picked it up without checking the caller ID. He knew who it was.

"Ezra," she breathed.

"You're late," he responded. He glanced over at the open window that led to his and Angie's bedroom. "She just went to sleep."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, I couldn't get away from..."

"I get it," Ezra said quietly.

Honey why are you crying? Is everything okay?
I gotta whisper ‘cause I can’t be too loud.

They were both silent for a moment. Ezra took one last drag of his cigarette, then put it out against the rail and let it fall to the ground. He watched it absentmindedly, waiting until it dropped out of existence to look back out at the city.

“Ezra,” she said a little desperately. Her breathing hitched. Even after all this time, he knew instantly that that meant that something was wrong, that she was about to cry.

“Aria?” he questioned, concerned.

“What if this is a mistake?” she sobbed.

He wasn’t sure what she was referring to; these weekly phone calls or the marriage proposal that had set them off.

“Hey,” he soothed softly, after a little while. “Worry about it tomorrow. Let’s just… be here, for now, okay?”

Ezra hated to hear her cry. More than that, he hated not being able to do anything about it. He desperately wished, even if just for a moment, that he could take her in his arms again, that he could feel her heart beating in time with his own, and wipe away her tears, disguising his feelings for her as kisses he scattered through her hair.

Instead, all he had were words, the very same words she’d uttered to him a lifetime ago.

My girl’s in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on

It’s funny, the way life works out. When Ezra had thought about his future, all those years ago in the quiet serenity of 3B, this was never what he had expected. He’d figured The New Brew would have been successful, but he would have gone back to teaching anyway once Aria had graduated. They would have been married, maybe even have had a kid by now. They would have found a decently-sized home on the outskirts of Philadelphia, not too far from her family and friends in Rosewood, but far enough to give them their own life, away from the judging eyes of past antagonists.

He had been so wrong.

After everything went south between them, and things did go as south as they could go, Ezra had packed up and headed to New York to regroup, where he’d lived ever since. He’d found a tiny, hole-in-the-wall apartment above a bar, which ended up being a perfect arrangement, since it encouraged the drinking habit he’d picked up. It was there that he first met Angie. She was reading there by herself one Wednesday night. He’d asked about her book, and they had somehow ended up back in his apartment. If she was upset that he’d called her by Aria’s name when he’d drunkenly climaxed, she said nothing.

They’d been together only a few months when he got the first call from Aria. It was supposed to be a courtesy call, informing him that she and her proper-aged ~~boyfriend~~ fiancée had gotten engaged and would be moving out to California.

She called again a week later, letting him know they hadn’t found an apartment. And again the next week, to let him know that they had. By week five of their calls, she’d dropped all pretenses. “I’ve just missed you so much,” she’d cried.

“I know,” he’d said, his voice clipped in case Angie overheard, “me too”.

It’s really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel

“Ezra, it’s wrong, isn’t it?” Aria asked once her tears had subsided, “what we’re doing to Carter and to Angie?”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “It still feels right.”

Again, they both went silent. For two people who each had such a way with words, it was incredible how often their conversations turned to silence.

“It’s just a phone call, Aria,” Ezra placated.

“Do you remember,” she asked suddenly, “when Noel Khan wrote that message on the back of your car? I sat down at my desk in your classroom and I asked you if you would go back, but you turned around and asked me if I would? I said no, and we agreed to go forward.”

“I remember.”

“I change my mind. I want to go back.”

Hearing those words, it makes me weak
And I never want to say goodbye

“Aria,” he sighed warningly. He loved to hear her talk like that. It reminded him of days past, of how utterly, hopelessly in love they had been with one another. Every time she told him how much she missed him or loved him or wanted him back, his heart soared. But he hated that kind of talk, too, for it reminded him of everything he’d lost. It scared him. That kind of talk was nearly enough to break his resolve, to send him crashing into her life like an ill-timed tidal wave, sweeping her up off her feet and back into his arms.

But he knew better, and underneath it all, so did she. No matter how much they both longed for each other, they had to move on. Their time had passed. Now, they were simply ships in the night, passing quietly by and making do with the hand they’d been dealt; their secret phone calls a vestige of something that had long ago been snuffed out.

“I know,” Aria murmured.

And she did. She did know. Aria understood just as well as he did that after their call ended, they would both go to bed, go back to their lives. Aria would reenter the master suite through the giant French doors she had insisted she needed. She’d slip back into her fiancée’s four-poster California King bed and turn her back to him so couldn’t see the guilt etched across her face as she drifted to sleep. Ezra would make his way back into the apartment through the window, careful to keep quiet. He’d strip off his jeans and t-shirts—the button-downs and vests that had made up his teacher costume had never managed to make it to New York with him—and sink into his bed. He’d let Angie curl herself around him in her sleep; he’d stare down at her, her petite frame reminding him of another, and wonder why she stayed with him at all. And in the morning, both Aria and Ezra would awaken and go about their daily routines as if nothing had ever happened.

But girl you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel

Aria and Carter would get married. Aria had already said yes, and she wasn’t one to quit things lightly, especially when it came to love. She would be happy. Occasionally, she’d be tempted to leave, to find Ezra and pick up where they left off, but she wouldn’t.

Ezra didn’t know what would happen to him. He did love Angie, even if he failed to show it. And since he knew Aria wouldn’t leave Carter, he wouldn’t leave Angie.

But these calls didn’t make anything any easier.

He desperately wished that they had started these calls years ago, when it could have helped them, when it would have mattered. Now it was too late for them. Their time had passed and they knew it.

Someday the calls would too.

So they clung to these phone calls, gently kindling the dying embers of their relationship that once was and never would be again. They had each other if only for now, in the dead of the night; and that was enough.

Honey why you calling me so late?

Elopement

2015-02-25T20:26:27Z

Title: Elopement
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: Aria and Ezra decide to elope.

Author's Note: Just a little drabble; I might expand on it later.

They elope one night a few weeks before she leaves for her second year of school. He has reservations about the idea. But she reminds him that their whole relationship was shrouded in secrecy. Why shouldn’t their marriage be? So they drive out to New York from her little dorm room at Talmadge and they do it. It’s spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment.

It’s them. And it’s perfect.

Forgiveness

2015-02-25T06:47:29Z

Title: Forgiveness
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: Ezra ponders what it means to be a forgiving kind of man.

Author's Note: Inspired by a still from 5x22. Minor spoiler for 5x21.

Ezra had always been a very forgiving man. He’d had to be—his parents were the kind of people who often needed forgiving. For his dad, it was the drinking. He’d never hit his children or his wife, but he’d come close on more than one occasion. His mother had always been manipulative; he’d only finally managed to get out from under her thumb when he cut off his ties with his whole family and transferred to Hollis. But even as an adult, Ezra was incredibly forgiving. Jackie had put him through hell, cheating on him several times with several different men, yet he’d still proposed to her when he thought the time was right.

With Aria, things had always felt different. Better. Despite their age difference, they’d always felt more like equals. He was able to hold his ground with her just as she was more than capable of holding hers with him. Besides, after everything he’d put her through, with the secret-keeping, with Jackie, with Maggie and Malcolm, not to mention that stupid book, he figured he owed her a few mistakes. So when she told him she’d kissed Jason, he’d been upset, but he understood that she had been upset with him too. He recognized that he’d made mistakes, and so in favor of keeping her, he forgave the kiss. And then, when she told him that she’d kissed Wesley, his own snot of a little brother, Ezra swept it under the rug as if it were nothing. He figured he’d practically forced her to be a stepmother at just seventeen years old; comparatively, one little kiss was nothing.

So when she sits him down on that park bench and begins to tell him how, for the third time in their relationship, she’d kissed someone else, Ezra is ready to forgive her. He must have done something wrong, he figures, to drive her to that kiss, so he wracks his brain. There was the book thing, of course, but she had already assured him several times that taking a bullet for her had been enough to warrant his forgiveness. He looks for something else. Has he been neglecting her for the Brew? No, he’s quite sure he’s managed to spend his time wisely. Was this about that letter or his reaction to it? He hadn’t really said anything wrong; he’d just given her an out if she wanted it.

For the first time, he can’t think of a single thing he’s done to deserve this.

Instead, he starts to try to think of reasons to forgive her. His first thought is of how much he loves her. He loves her so much it hurts sometimes, and he figures you’re supposed to forgive the people you love. He almost says as much and forgives her on the spot, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind warns him not to; if Andrew makes her happy, shouldn’t let her go to be with him, to be happy? He pushes the thought aside for the time being, figuring he’ll come back to it. Next, he is reminded of her letter. The words she had so eloquently written feel as though they’re forever etched on the backs of his eyelids, taunting him every time he blinks. He’d forgiven her for it, sure, but he hadn’t forgotten it. Suddenly he’s reminded of every bad thing she’s done to him, the pain she has put him through these past few years, the feelings he’d never voiced for fear of losing her. He pictures her witnessed kisses with Noel and her imagined ones with Wesley and Jason and even Jake. He can almost see that nameless Syracuse guy putting his hands all over her, tracing the places only Ezra himself had previously seen. It makes him angry.

With a start, he realizes that, he can’t be that guy anymore. He can’t forgive her.

And he doesn’t.

Baby No. 2

2015-02-21T04:46:01Z

Title: Baby No. 2
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: "Ezra is at work so Aria sends him a snapchat of a sleeping Daisy…."

Author's Note: A response to this picture at the ezriagame tumblr (neither my picture nor tumblr)

During a break between classes, Ezra heads back to his office. He settles himself in, then pulls out his phone. As expected, a picture from Aria is waiting for him. She knows how much he hates having to leave her and Daisy, so she sends him pictures and videos of whatever they’re doing for the day. She knows that he wants to be as involved as possible in his daughter’s life, and he’s eternally grateful that she includes him when he can’t be home with her.

Daisy had been a surprise. Not an unwelcome one (during Aria’s pregnancy, Ezra had sometimes referred to Daisy as their “happy accident”), but a surprise nonetheless. They had planned on having kids someday, but someday had always been somewhere in the vague future, not a few months into their engagement. He figured it suited them, though; they’d never had very good timing. And besides, Daisy had made the most beautiful flower girl in their wedding. It had been a trying year and a half, learning to be parents, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Ezra swipes right to open the snapchat and a serene smile instantly comes to his face. Aria had sent him a picture of Daisy sleeping in their bed. The light from their bay window streams in behind her, laying delicate shadows across her small features. He has spent countless hours memorizing those little traits, the best combination of him and Aria all rolled up into one tiny person. He quickly takes a screenshot.

It takes a minute for Aria’s caption to sink in. Ezra frantically pulls the picture back up on his screen and stares at it, making sure he didn’t misread anything. He didn’t. Can we make another one please? she’d written.

Ezra looks up at the framed picture sitting on his desk, of him, Aria, and Daisy at their wedding. He thinks of his family, of how much he loves Aria, of how he’d instantaneously fallen in love with Daisy the second Aria had announced her existence.

It doesn’t take him long to text her back.

Let’s do it.

EGL 253: American Innocence

2015-02-02T07:40:57Z

Title: EGL 253: American Innocence
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13.
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: Ezra recieves a not-so-PG-rated videocall from Aria while he's administering a test at Hollis one day.

Prompt: "Pretty Little Liars, Arya/Ezra, (516): im stripping for him via video chat, but the sound is turned off cause his students are taking a test" at comment-fic.
Author's Note: So this came out to be wayyy longer than I'd intended. I had a few different ideas for this prompt, too, so I might try a different one.

On Fridays, Professor Fitz teaches his favorite class, EGL 253: American Innocence. The course runs from 9:15-10:20. He loves the class, mostly because he loves the novels he gets to cover in it. He’s also fond of the time and day, since it’s his last class before the weekend. Coincidentally, that hour comes at the same time as Aria’s free period.

He swears he didn’t plan that. (He’s lying).

Sometimes she’ll come to Hollis and sit in on his class. She’ll sneak in and beeline to the back of the room. She always changes where she sits. It’s like a game, trying to find her amongst his thirty other students. Of course, he’s certain he could recognize Aria in a classroom of three hundred. She listens intently, taking notes and asking and answering questions just like his other students. Yet he can’t help the blush that comes to his cheeks when she gives him those looks, the heat that rises when she leans forward, just far enough that he can see the very top of whatever bra she’s chosen that day.

They usually end up in his office pretty quickly after class, but she can never stay long; her day is just beginning.

Sometimes, if she can’t come in, she’ll call him before class starts. It’s those calls that make him miss teaching at Rosewood, where he could see her every day. But he knows that it’s better in the long run for him to be at Hollis, so he takes what he can get.
Recently, though, she’s started video chatting him during class. Video chatting itself is nothing new for them—they do it pretty frequently throughout the week—but he’s not used to it while he’s teaching. He doesn’t mind, though. If she wants to sit in on his lectures via his computer, he’ll let her.

Ezra never expected it to turn into this. He’s about to administer an exam when he notices her giving him that look through the computer screen. He knows that look. He’s seen it quite a few times now; it’s her “I have a devious idea” look. He’s not sure if it’s going to like whatever’s about to happen. Subtly, he shifts his computer, hoping none of his students can see it over the podium he lectures from.

He leaves the podium to hand out the tests and wishes his students luck. It shouldn’t be a particularly difficult test, but it’s not going to be easy either. He’s a little apprehensive to head back to his computer. Aria is up to something.

Ezra sits down at the stool behind his podium and gives the room a quick glance. Everything seems alright, so he dares to look back down at Aria on his screen. She’s sitting on her bed in her bedroom, a wicked smile now matching her devious look. He gulps. She raises a finger to her lips, telling him to be quiet, and he nods, letting her know that he’s willing to play along with whatever game she’s prepared for him.

He jumps when his cellphone vibrates in his pocket. Even with the videochat sound off, he can tell she’s laughing at him. It’s a message from her. “I have a test for you too, Professor. Two rules: Stay quiet for your students and don’t text back. If you answer correctly, you’ll get a prize. Nod if you’re ready.”

Intrigued, he does as asked. “Good,” she texts back, “First question: What date did we meet, the 4^th or the 5^th?”

Adhering to his rules, he holds up the number 4. Aria smiles at him. Suddenly, her shirt goes flying over her head, leaving her clad in only her skirt and bra. Ezra lets out a surprised breath, which he overs with a cough. He can’t quite cover how his eyebrows raise until they’re practically a part of his hairline. As a precaution, he pulls his laptop closer to him, desperately hoping none of his students can see his scantily clad girlfriend.

“Relax,” Aria texts him. A glance at the screen reveals that she’s dramatically rolling her eyes at him. It would seem kind childish if she wasn’t so half-naked and gorgeous and distracting. His phone vibrates again. “I didn’t realize you had such test anxiety, Professor Fitz. Maybe you should just enjoy the show instead”.

Ezra hunches his top half over his computer and gives once final glance around the room. He can’t believe he’s about to agree to this. (He is, though, because he loves Aria more than anything and he loves being with her and how can he not agree to let his incredibly hot girlfriend strip for him?)

When she’s done, Ezra has to think of all of the bills he has yet to pay and all of the great-aunt Ethel kisses he’s ever gotten in order to get himself under control. His phone vibrates again a few minutes later. “Hope you enjoyed the show ;) Your place after school? XO – Aria”.

“Professor?” one of his quietest students says, shuffling up to him with her test in her hand, “Um, are you okay? You seem to be sweating a lot.”

“M’fine,” he chokes out, composing himself, “I’ll take your test”.

Aria is absolutely going to be the death of him.

But man, what a way to go.

Change My Needs

2015-01-23T07:21:47Z

Title: Change My Needs
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13.
Characters/Pairing: Aria/Ezra

Summary: But the sound he hears most clearly, one he immediately knows he'll never be able to forget, is the hitch of her breath before she breaks down. Coda to 2x12.

Author's Note: Takes place during 2x12, Over My Dead Body, when Aria uses her phonecall at the police station. It was written when the episode aired, so is ignorant to anything learned in seasons 3-5.

Change My Needs

“This is a call from the Rosewood county police department. For security reasons, this call may be recorded”.

Ezra’s brow furrows, and as he has whenever the police have been involved in the past year, he grows instantly concerned. Continuing his relationship with Aria had been a huge risk, but for her, he had always been willing. Of course, that wouldn’t mean much if he were put in jail. Could someone have found out about him and Aria? Is she okay?

As the line transfers into the station, he hears everything in hypersensitivity; he hears garbled voices all mingled together, with a few words like “deceased” and “homicide” instantly popping out at him. He hears rushed heavy feet in the background, the click of a stapler, the rustle of papers. But the sound he hears most clearly, one he immediately knows he’ll never be able to forget, is the hitch of her breath before she breaks down. “Aria?” he questions, his level of concern immediately kicking into overdrive, “Aria, what’s wrong?” He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when he hears her speak.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake and I need you.” She’s barely able to choke the words out before she’s overcome by tears.

“It’s okay, Aria, shh, it’ll be okay.” He does his best to comfort her over the phone, saying anything and everything to get her to calm down while simultaneously searching for his shoes and keys. This is the woman he loves and she needs him. There is no power in heaven or earth that could prevent him from getting to her.

He makes it to the station in record time. He bursts through the double doors, barely able to stop at security, he’s so desperate to get to her. His mind is blank. All he can think about is getting to her, saving her from whatever evil has befallen her.

“Hey Franklin,” the guard, who is taking forever to sign Ezra in , calls to an officer, “did the Montgomery girl’s parents get here yet?”
Ezra actually physically takes a step back. Fuck. Her parents. When he’d heard her scared, thick with tears voice, he’d instantly forgotten about all of their real-world problems. At the mention of her parents, they all come flooding back. He’s suddenly torn; should he continue into the station or turn around? But then he remembers: she needs him, and so he has to continue.

He rounds the corner, and finds the officer he’s been directed to and asks about Aria. As she points him in the right direction, he looks up and finds himself practically face to face with Ella Montgomery. Okay. This is it. He’s going to have to tell her. Right now. Here in this police station. Where Byron would probably have him arrested. “Ella,” he says, by way of greeting.

She gives him a cool, level look. “I know why you’re here.”

He breaths a small sigh of relief and nods. Of course she knows why he’s here. Why else would he be here, if not for Aria? Now he just needs to get her to understand his side of their story. “You just need to understand that, that I-“

“Stop,” she says sharply. “This is a very small town. People see things. And they talk,” she says, accentuating the word “talk”.

Ezra knows that there have been rumors, from time to time, that he’s in a relationship with a student (*former student, he reminds himself), but as far as he knew, nobody ever took them seriously. Maybe that wasn’t the case.

“I actually thought you were an outstanding teacher”. Her voice is so full of disappointment, it reminds him of when he was young and his mother actually cared to be disappointed in him. He sees very clearly now where Aria gets her intense capacity for trust from. Thinking of her traits ground him, reminding him exactly why he is here, having this discussion.

“I’m in love with her,” he says. It’s the best way he can think to convey to Ella why he must be here, why he must be allowed to see her daughter tonight, yet the second the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. This is, after all, a lot for Ella to process, and this declaration of his unyielding love for her teenager and his former student cannot be making this easier on her.

Ella takes a shaky breath, and again, Ezra finds himself looking for traces of the woman he loves within her mother. “I’m gonna give you one chance to walk away from this,” she starts. He’s ready to argue, to explain their love story and how many chances they’ve both had to walk away, how they were both physically unable to part. Instead, he wisely holds his tongue, letting her finish. “…not because you deserve it, but because this is the last thing we need to deal with right now. And when you go, you need to keep going, because if Spencer’s parents find out about this, they will ruin you”.

Well. That is… not at all what he expected. Ella thinks he’s with Spencer? Why would she even think that? He knows that he should correct her, that’s what he and Aria agreed on, and that in the long run it will make things easier—hell, they’re already at the police station, if Byron had him arrested, it would even make the officer’s job easier—but he can’t. He chokes.

He doesn’t dare ask to see Aria or her friends, so instead he sits down on the bench behind him and waits. Aria should at least know that he came when she needed him, so he wants to make sure she sees him. A little while later, all four girls are released to their parents. He and Aria make eye contact as she hugs her father and she flashes him the most brilliant smile he’s ever seen.

So maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea for him to come here tonight. And maybe he should have just told Ella about him and Aria. But she had needed him. How could he not be there for her? He would give anything for her, do anything for her, he knew it in his bones. And if he could make her smile like that again? Well, that was worth everything.

fin.

Taste

2012-09-27T15:19:40Z

Title: Taste
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13.
Characters/Pairing: Hatter/Alice

Summary: "David" tastes every new thing he can find when he gets to Alice's world.

Author's Note: First Halice fic! Written for a prompt (listed below) at comment_fic.
Prompt: Syfy's Alice (2009), Alice/Hatter, taste

(Read more...)

Desperation in Action

2012-09-27T04:54:22Z

Title: Desperation in Action
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13.
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison, Eliot

Summary: A coda to 510, "The Rundown Job". A Hardison-centric piece, focusing on why he so desperately wanted to outrun the flu, rather than stay and fight.

Author's Note: I borrowed dialogue directly from the episode for this piece, so there are definitely spoilers for "The Rundown Job". Also, this is the first fanfic I've written in about a year, so I feel a little rusty, haha. Cross-posted at fanfiction.net, here.
Prompt: 15: This is my desperation in action. Table Here.

Desperation in Action

They need to run. They need to take everything they can gather, give Nate and Sophie a call, and take a group trip to one of Nate's new underground bunkers.

They need to get out of the weapon's path. Fast.

Last time, fifty million people died because of that bug. This time, a hundred fifty million people are going to die, and he's going to make damn well sure his team isn't included in that number.

"Look, we can do this," Parker says. And he hears her angelic voice, and sees her beautiful face, all right there in front of him, but all he can see in his head is her dying slowly in his arms, her big eyes losing their light little by little and all he knows is that that is not an option. "Just treat it like any other job."

"This isn't just any other job," he says softly. She doesn't get it, doesn't see that this can and will take her from him and he can't let that happen because he needs her too damn much.

"Alright, alright just stay focused" Eliot says.

"I am focused!" he growls back. Eliot should understand, he should know that they should be halfway to that safe bunker right now. Doesn't he get what the Spanish flu is, what it does, how much destruction it can cause? They need to get moving. "That bug in there killed fifty million people! Fifty! And that was when the population was lower!"

"And now?" Parker asks.

He can't think, can't breathe, can only see her body going limp in his arms, the color draining from her lips, can already begin to feel the anguish, but answers her calmly as he can. He is desperate now, and this is his desperation in action-if he needs to answer their questions before they'll leave, then he's gonna do it, and he's gonna do it damn quick.

"Now," he answers, looking right at her, and oh God, all he can see is her cold, dead body, and he needs to look away, "a hundred and fifty million. A hundred and fifty million dead."

He finds Eliot, somehow in charge of this whole operation, and tries to get him to understand why they need to get out now. "Look, we're thieves, man. And we're good at what we do, but this is way, way out of our league. And you expect us to go kick some psycho with a city killer, a country killer?"

"You scared?" Eliot counters.

"You're damn right." Eliot should be scared too, dammit, doesn't he see that? Parker, too, but he can't let himself think of that, of her, so he takes that as the end of the conversation, confirmation that they're finally going to get out, when suddenly he finds a hand on wrist, keeping it in place.

"I'm not," No fucking shit, Eliot's not scared, does he want a medal, Hardison thinks, but wisely stays mute. He should be scared, and Hardison can't understand why the hell he isn't.

"I got the best thief..." and oh God, there she is again, gasping for air, and he can't hear a word Eliot's saying over her pained gasps, and the sound of his own heart breaking, and he has to see her, perfect and healthy like she is now, so he seeks her out and their eyes meet and she's telling him it's okay, she's okay, to listen to Eliot and when the hell did she get so damn perceptive and able to speak so clearly with just her eyes, when suddenly his head is yanked away.

"Hey, listen to me," Eliot says in his low, rough tone, his hand a constant pressure on the back of Hardison's neck, "you're the smartest guy I've ever known, Hardison. I need that brain to get me to him."

Hardison softens. Eliot has known a lot of people, and if he's the smartest guy Eliot's ever known, he must be able to do something about this, right? No, he's a hacker, for Christ's sakes, he doesn't know the first thing about taking down the Spanish flu! ...except he does know quite a bit about the Spanish Flu, no matter how badly he suddenly wishes that he doesn't. But still, he doesn't know the cure for it. Even if he could work something out, he'd need to be able to get to the guy who found the flu, see his files, his notes, find out what specific strand of the virus he's using.

"Cause you know if I laid my hands on him, it's done." He can't let Eliot do that, because if no one finds this guy's notes, no one can fix it, but wait! No. Nuh-uh; it's so not safe. He can't-"Get me to him."

Well, fuck. Eliot's giving him that look, that you-have-to-do-this-for-reasons look, that you-absolutely-can-do-this look. And he's right, Eliot will tear the man apart and that would be very bad because then a hundred and fifty million people would die and no one could stop it.

Except him. Hardison knows he's smart. He could probably do this. No, he could definitely do this. He could save them, could save all hundred and fifty million of them. He could save them. He could save her.

That thought was all he needed to throw himself into action.

He could save her.

He focuses. Think. Think, think. A biological weapon. What's the bad guy going to do first? He'll start there. "He has to weaponize it".

"Good. That's a good start."

Eliot's proud and Parker looks still nervous, but relieved, and ya know, Hardison's a little proud of himself for being able to think through this gut-wrenching fear.

"We find the labs," Parker infers. She's suddenly beside him and her hand reaches out and touches him lightly on the back, and his resolve is steeled. He couldn't survive without her, her gentle touch a firm reminder of that. So he has to stop this. He has to, for her.

Her words register more slowly than her touch, and he knows she's wrong. "He doesn't need a lab." He's already got the virus, he doesn't need to make it. He needs to test it. "He needs pigs."

fin.

Strange Happenings

2012-09-27T00:13:41Z

Title: Strange Happenings
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: G.
Characters/Pairing: The Gang; slight Fred/Daphne

Summary: The gang goes on vacation and is determined not to solve mysteries while there. Of course, fate has ways of makes things just happen.

Written For: A response to a prompt over at Comment_Fic --

Scooby-Doo, the gang, they're on vacation and for once they are not going to solve this mystery. No, sir.

They’ve been on vacation over an hour already, and there hasn’t been a single sign of a mystery. No clues, no tracks, no Professor Pericles, nothing. That’s a new record.

It’s a good thing, too, because Daphne made it clear that there was to be no mystery solving on this trip. The others, desperate for a break, readily agreed. Even Fred.

He and Daphne are lying together on their beach blanket, chatting idly and watching the clouds pass by. Velma lies on her stomach next to them, immersed in her book. Scooby and Shaggy are, of course, chowing down on a never-ending supply of sandwiches.

Daphne gets up to go to the bathroom and drags Velma along with her. On their way back, they pass by the Snack Shack. Daphne pretends not have overheard the owner talking about her customers’ valuables disappearing. And she certainly doesn’t hear that the valuables seem to disappear whenever the creature is around. When she’s finished not-listening, they move back to the towels and settle back into their activities.

Scooby and Shaggy make their way toward the Snack Shack a half-hour later, having run out of food. They’ve been waiting in line for fifteen minutes, still undecided about what kind of sandwiches to get, when they notice a figure sneaking out of the back of the restaurant. They really, really don’t want to get out of line to look, but they can’t help themselves.

Then, of course, they wish that they hadn’t. The thing that they see is huge. Like, gigantic. Probably six feet, seven inches tall. That’s two whole more inches than Shaggy. That’s how big we’re talking. It’s red and slimy and basically looks like a lobster but with a more human-shaped head. The boys take off running, but when they return to their blanket, they decide not to say anything to the group. It was scary, whatever it was, but they did only see it once… and the wrath of Daphne can be much scarier.

They manage to convince Velma to get their sandwiches for them. She does, begrudgingly, of course, but she makes them write down their insane order so she doesn’t have to bother memorizing it. While she’s waiting in line, the sign to her left reminding her that there’s “30 minutes left from this point, mates!”, she makes conversation with the woman in front of her. Apparently, she comes to the beach every day, but lately, it’s been different. The main lifeguard, Jerry, always seems distracted. She knows he’s been having financial trouble lately, and ponders aloud whether it’s that. Velma stops listening when the woman starts talking about her kids. She orders the insane sandwich and returns to the gang, her gears turning.

A little while later, the gang gets up to play in the water. Fred leans against the lifeguard chair under the pretense of watching his friends play—really, he’d styled his hair so perfectly that morning that he didn’t want to risk getting it wet and ruining it. He looks up and notices that there is no lifeguard on duty in this section of the beach. But he can see the lifeguard’s jacket still up there, the name “Jerry” cleared embroidered on the arm, he figures the lifeguard must have just taken a break.

Fred’s friends, and specifically his girlfriend, are happily playing in the water, Fred decides it would be okay to set a trap. Just a little one. They’d never notice. He’ll trap the lifeguard, let him know that it’s not okay to leave his post, then he’ll go on his merry way.

Fifteen minutes later, the trap is set. It’s elaborate, and spans from the edge of the water, in the lifeguard-only section, right to this Jerry’s chair. Jerry will be drawn from the water and thrown into his high chair, and will be secured there when his foot hits the egg and the egg falls into the lever and the lever sends the rope winding around his body. It’s really a perfect trap, and Fred’s particularly proud of it, since he made it using only seaweed and turtle eggs he found in a little treasure trove.

The gang moves over to Freddy, to see what he’s been up to while they were in the water. He turns from his trap to answer them and responds that he wasn’t doing anything important when suddenly Daphne hugs him so hard, he doesn’t even hear his trap going off.

The other beachgoers gasp and scream. The gang turns to look at what they’re pointing at. Freddy shouts in delight, finding his trap has worked rather better than he intended—instead of catching Jerry, Fred caught a lobster-like creature. Scooby and Shaggy start jumping and pointing, shouting that it’s him, it’s their creature. Daphne looks up at the creature, and Velma spies Jerry’s jacket and suddenly everything makes sense.

They each lay out their part of the mystery.

Daphne describes how she overheard a creature was stealing valuables at the Snack Shack. Shaggy recounts his and Scooby’s fright over seeing the creature behind the very same shack. Velma tells how she knew that a lifeguard named Jerry was having financial troubles and had been acting strangely. And Fred pieces it all together, saying that Jerry must have created the creature persona to steal valuables from the customers at the Snack Shack. He stored the valuables in Fred’s treasure trove and planned to use them to pay off his financial troubles. He pulls the mask off and no one is surprised to discover Jerry the lifeguard underneath.

Mystery solved, the gang packs up and heads for home.

“Gang,” Daphne says, “we just solved a mystery. Without meaning to. On our vacation.”

“No we didn’t,” Fred says, throwing an arm around her. “We just happened across a couple of facts separately that just happened to solve a mystery together.”

The group murmurs their agreement and Daphne gives up the fight. They’re mystery-solvers. If she can’t get them to give up mystery-solving on their vacation, then why try?

Of Grammar and Bob the Salesman

2012-01-10T22:08:01Z

Title: Of Grammar and Bob the Salesman
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13-ish.
Characters/Pairing: Sylar; Poor, unfortunate Bob Feldmann

Summary: Sylar's introspection is interrupte by one very unfortunate traveling salesman.

Written For: A response to a prompt over at Comment_Fic -- Heroes, Sylar, dealing with door-to-door salesmen.
Author's Note: I haven't written anything in a really long time, especially not for Heroes, but I saw this prompt and couldn't resist!

They called him a “serial killer”, at which he politely laughed (politely, for his mother had taught him to always be polite). He was a “psychopath”, a “homicidal sociopath”, according the papers. He found it quite humorous that they used these words interchangeably when, in fact, they meant different things.

Of course, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a homicidal, psychopathic, sociopathic serial killer. He absolutely was. He just liked to poke fun at their grammar.

Still, being a cold-blooded murderer had its advantages, Sylar figured. There was the whole power-stealing thing (and no matter what color your moral compass spins—white, black or grey—that’s got to be pretty cool to be able to do). Then there was the “everybody fears you so stays away” aspect. While he admittedly did get lonely, that solitude appealed to him. And, of course, if anybody did dare to get close enough, he could take them down in a split second. It was a simple equation, really: stolen powers + instilling the fear of God = ultimate power. He was more powerful than anyone, even—A knock.

Who in the hell would be stupid enough to interrupt his third-person narrative-style introspection?

“What?” Sylar hissed.

The man recoiled, his smile wavering for a fraction of a second. He quickly righted himself and began. “Hi sir,” he said, sticking out his hand, “I’m Robert Feldmann, with Feldmann’s House and Homegoods store. We’ve got a depot down on 38^th

Sylar crossed his arms over chest and quirked an eyebrow at the man.

“Right,” Robert Feldmann said, pulling his hand back awkwardly. “Well, uh, haave you heard…?”

Sylar let Robert drone on for precisely 4.32 more seconds before pulling him inside and slicing his skull open, in the way a homicidal, psychopathic, sociopath serial killer might.

Not having to deal with door-to-door salesman was definitely another advantage.

Comment_Fic Parker/Hardison Masterpost

2011-08-27T04:21:05Z

Cat Scratch Fever

2011-08-27T04:19:31Z

Title: Cat Scratch Fever
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: "Cats, man! Fucking furry little sociopaths."
Written For: A second response to a prompt over at Comment_Fic.
Author's Note: Takes place somewhere in the future. But within a year. Maybe. I don't know, whenever you want to put it, that's good enough for me. :)

Eliot sits at the island, wearing his trademark something-embarrassing-happened-to-you-and-I-know-it grin. “What happened?”

Hardison looks, no, scratch that, glares at him. “Cats, man. Fucking furry little sociopaths.”

Eliot smirks, taking a swig of his beer, while Hardison retrieves a bag of peas from the freezer. “You’re the one who told her to get a pet.”

“Yeah, well, I meant a dog,” he huffs, sitting next to Eliot with a bottle of orange soda, the peas over his right eye, “maybe a hamster. Or, hell, a ferret for all I care. Not an evil fucking cat.”

Eliot just chuckles.

“It’s a huge, freakin’ ball of devil, living in my home. My own home, Eliot. And let me tell you, no matter what Parker says, I am not that beast’s father. Nu-uh,” he downs his soda and grumbles the entire way to the bathroom.

“Hey Uncle Eliot!” Parker says in a voice that can only be described as a cat voice.

She waves one of the cat’s paws at him before appearing herself. She sets the cat on the counter and lets it scramble toward him. When it gets close enough, it nudges his arm, purring loudly. “We’re looking for Mr. Wiggins’s Daddy, have you seen him?”

Eliot leans down towards the cat and scratches it behind it’s ears. “Try the bathroom.”

He laughs when he hears Hardison hit his head against the door. “Hey, there, Mr. Wiggins. Daddy loves you, please don’t hurt him. No, Mr. Wiggins, no, bad cat! Sit! Heel!”

Eliot feels no sympathy when Hardison returns to the freezer for a second bag of ice-pack vegetables.

“Seriously, man?” Hardison asks, indignant.

“You let her get the cat!”

Appearances.

2011-08-18T17:06:29Z

Title: Appearances.
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: The next time Parker showed up, three days later, she leapt through his bathroom window while he was brushing his teeth.
Written For: A prompt over at Comment_Fic. Also ties into a prompt at Leverage500
Author's Note: Takes place somewhere after the Grave Danger Job, but there are no spoilers for any episode anywhere in it.

The first time she turned up unexpectedly, she tumbled out of an air duct to find Hardison playing Zelda in “uniform”. He, of course, was incredibly embarrassed (no matter what way you tried to spin it (and he tried several different ways) it wasn’t exactly cool for your girlfriend to find you in an elf costume). She explained that she wanted Chinese, and he was going to go with her and pay for it, because Parker didn’t like to eat out alone and especially didn’t like spending money. Hardison agreed, changed, and they left, him exiting through the front door, her… well, he never did know how she managed to get out that day.

The next time Parker showed up, three days later, she leapt through his bathroom window while he was brushing his teeth. Hardison let out a very manly shriek when he looked up into his mirror to find her standing behind him. After promising never to do that to him again, Parker explained that there was another chocolate festival in town, and she needed someone to go with her (after the last one, a rule had been made that Parker was not allowed within two hundred feet of a chocolate festival unsupervised; it very quickly added to the ever-growing list of rules posted on Nate’s fridge). He asked for ten minutes, and she waited, following him around and bouncing on her heels like a puppy. She left her rigs behind as they walked out the front door together.

The third time, he came home from the grocery store, laden with bags of orange soda and gummy frogs, to find Parker sitting on his couch, eating a giant bowl of cereal (which, he found out later, had come from one of the twelve boxes of cereal she’d stashed in his cabinet), and playing World of Warcraft. She looked up long enough to give him a small smile and a half-wave, then she turned back to her game. Hardison smiled back and set about putting away his things. When she left, she grabbed one of her rigs from its new home next to his door, and rappelled down the elevator shaft.

The fourth time she appeared out of nowhere, and this time he literally thought she must have Apparated there, because there was no way in hell she could’ve just shown up like that. They were going to watch a romantic comedy, Parker proclaimed, because Sophie had said that’s what people watched on dates. Hardison agreed warily, wondering whether he should send Sophie a thousand copies of AARP’s naughty magazine or thank her. He ended up choosing the latter. Later, as Parker was about to leave through the bathroom window, he slipped a copy of his key into her pocket. “Just in case you don’t feel like breaking in,” he explained.

The fifth time, she unlocked the door and appeared in his doorway, her modest amount of belongings behind her. “Bunny wanted a new home,” she said by way of explanation. Hardison ushered her in, grabbing everything but the safe (although it was much too heavy for him, Parker pushed it through his apartment and to her new room like it weighed nothing), and helped her settle herself in. From then on, even though she still left by unconventional means, she always came home through the door. And really, if she was coming home to him every night, who was he to complain how she got there?

Need

2011-08-15T20:08:41Z

Title: Need.
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: He senses her presence before he sees her.
Written For: A prompt over at Comment_Fic.
Author's Note: Takes place immediately after the end of 4x07 - The Grave Danger Job, so spoilers for that. I'm not sure if I like how this came out (I don't think I do, so I might be re-doing it), but I'll let you judge.

He senses her presence before he sees her.

“It’s not easy to care about someone when you know that someday, they’re gonna die.”

He turns to face her, but doesn’t speak.

“I was worried about that,” she stumbles over “worried” and laughs a little. Hardison can’t tell whether she truly finds it funny that she was worried or if she’s mocking herself. “Until you… disappeared,” she can’t say buried, it’s too recent for that, “I was worried that someday, you were gonna die, and I,” she chokes, fighting back tears, and when she recovers, her voice is smaller than he’s ever heard it before, “and I wouldn’t know if you were okay or not without me.”

He takes a few steps towards her, invading her personal space.

“I’m not going anywhere without you, Parker. Ever. You heard me on that phone today. I need you.”

She breaks, and he pulls her close, his hand coming to rest in her hair. When they pull apart, he asks, “Do you want me to tell you about what it was like down there?”

Parker hesitates, then nods, so they move to his apartment door. He turns to open it and is startled by the complete darkness that lies behind it. He’s not sure if he can handle it, it’s too much like the coffin, too much like death; but then her warm, delicate hand is in his, calming and comforting, and together, they flick the light switch on.

Even if he can’t make her believe it, Hardison knows that she is the only reason he is still standing. In that coffin, running out of air, he knew he couldn’t let himself suffocate. He couldn’t leave her alone in the world. She needed him.

She needs him and he needs her.

And if he ever needs a reason to live, he figures that’s a pretty damn good one.

Not-Jealousy.

2011-08-13T14:37:30Z

Title: Not-Jealousy.
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: “Well, I uh, you know, I mean, It’s not that I’m jealous, Alec Hardison does not get jealous."
Written For: Challenge #2 - Jealousy, at Leverage500.
Author's Note: I've been doing a lot from Parker's point of view lately, so I figured I'd give Hardison's a try. The italics are voices heard through the earbuds.

“So, is Agent Hagen still your partner?”

Hardison had to consciously keep his head from dropping in annoyance. This is why he absolutely did not want to work with McSweetheart.

“Hagen? Yeah, we’ve been partners about four years now.”

“So is she going to be uh, coming by at all? Here, to where we are?”

Hardison scoffed. In favor of the con, he ignored his finer instincts (to tell McSweetie no, she wasn’t coming by at all, because she wasn’t interested), and replied, “yeah, she, uh, she had to run out and get coffee. Agent Hagen without coffee, it ain’t pretty, man. It just ain’t pretty.”

If he had to work with McSweeten, at least he could try to make him like Parker less.

“Oh, I doubt that.”

…Or not. Hardison grumbled under his breath and shifted some papers around on the table.

“Hardison,” Nate warned through the comms.

“So, uh, Agent Hagen, is she um, seeing anyone?”

And, if Hardison was being completely honest with himself, which he usually was, this was the real reason he didn’t want to work with McSweeten. Hardison knew he was going to ask about Parker’s love life; he just didn’t know how to respond.

Sure, Parker had said that she was in the mood for pretzels. And yes, they had been getting a lot closer recently. And he would love to consider Parker his girlfriend. He just didn’t know if she considered him her boyfriend.

So he chose not to respond.

“Ya know what, man, my phone is going crazy. You know, on uh, vibrate, so… I gotta take this. But I’ll answer that for you when I get back.”

Hardison slipped out of the room, put his phone away, and put his hand to his earbud.

“What do I tell him?”

“Tell him what he wants to hear,” Nate replied.

“And that would be?”

“Say no,” Parker replied. He could imagine the face she was making; it very clearly said “duh”.

Even though it was just for the job, Hardison couldn’t help but be a little disheartened. If Nate had told him to say no, that Parker wasn’t seeing anyone, it wouldn’t have felt as bad. But coming from Parker herself, even though it was just for a job and he knew she wouldn’t understand that it would hurt him, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

“Yeah, right. Single. Parker is single. Not seeing a soul.”

Through the comm, he could hear Sophie chuckle at his not-so-subtle discomfort .

“Agent McSweeten,” Hardison called, walking back into the room, “that was Hagen, she’ll be here soon. She is single, by the way…”

He was getting ready to go to bed, at his usual 4:30 A.M., when she appeared, perched on the arm of his couch, eating a bowl of cereal and watching God only knows what.

Three years ago, Hardison might’ve (read: would have) been startled by this. Now, he simply glanced between her and his bedroom door, and sat down beside her.

“Hey,” she said around the mouthful.

He nodded in response, barely suppressing a yawn.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her set the bowl down and look forward. Her mouth pursed and her tongue ran over her teeth in that Parker-wants-to-discuss-something-important-but-doesn’t-know-how kind of way.

“Something bothering you?” he asked, shifting to face her.

She snapped her head to look at him, and her gaze softened a hair. Hardison liked to think that a lesser man, McSweetheart, for example, wouldn’t have noticed and decoded such a subtle thing. (Even though, he rationalized, Parker was about as subtle as… something that’s not subtle. But still. McSweeten would not have understood.)

“Were you angry about what I said?” Parker asked quietly, shuffling her feet.

He instantly understood that she was asking if he was mad that she had him tell McSweeten she was single. “No, Parker, no, it was just for the con, I know that.”

She looked at her shuffled feet, then looked up at him. “Sophie told Nate you were upset. I don’t think I was supposed to hear that.” She got a funny look on her face, as if she was trying to make sense of her own words, but it left almost as quickly as it came.

“Parker, I’m not mad at you,” he took a deep breath, pausing partially to let the message sink in and partially for dramatic effect, because he was all about the dramatic effect, “I, uh… you know, I really hate him.”

“Why?”

“Parker, McSweeten likes you,” Hardison said. He knew what he wanted to say, he always knew what he wanted to say; he just never knew how to say it.

“Oh,” she paused, trying to sound like she knew what he meant by that (and failing miserably), and continued, “I’m confused. Didn’t we already know that?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So why do you hate him?”

“Well, I uh, you know, I mean, It’s not that I’m jealous, Alec Hardison does not get jealous,” he flailed, “I just, when you and him are together, and he thinks you’re not in, you know, he thinks you, uh, aren’t with anyone… I don’t like it.”

Parker giggled then, which was plain freaky. Parker didn’t giggle. She laughed, she snorted, and she did not giggle. End of story. Plus, that wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been expecting (then again, this was Parker, and when did she ever act the way anyone expected?).

He’d barely noticed that her giggling fit had subsided when she flung herself at him in a giant hug.

“So,” she said, pulling away, but still sitting on his lap. He moved his arms around, not knowing where to put them, until she placed them at her waist. Then she continued, “You weren’t jealous of McSweeten just like I wasn’t jealous of Strange-Teeth-Ashley.”

Hardison chuckled, then smiled at her. “Right.”

Parker smiled back and crawled off of him, going to retrieve her cereal. Then, she placed herself next to him on the couch, leaning into him ever-so-slightly (a phrase that he had never used before and planned to never use again), and returned to watching her cartoons.

An hour later, he began to doze off, but wanting to stay with Parker, he tried to fight it, and hoped it would just be one of the many things she didn’t pick up on.

She did.

“You can sleep, you know,” Parker chimed from somewhere next to him. The drowsiness was making it hard to judge much of anything, except the weight of her body against his.

“Will you still be here when I wake up?” Hardison could barely keep his eyes open, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep until heard her answer.

“I… yeah, I’ll stay,” she said with a smile, settling into him.

Hardison managed to smile back. His last thought before sleep overcame him was that he didn’t have to be jealous; he had Parker.

He’d let McSweeten be the jealous one.

Let it Burn

2011-08-05T04:38:00Z

Title: Let it Burn
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: There's an inferno blazing in the depths of her stomach whenever she goes near him.
Author's Note: A response to a prompt on comment-fic, "Leverage, Parker/Hardison, "think I'll just let it burn".

There's an inferno blazing in the depths of her stomach whenever she goes near him.

Sophie, when asked, assured Parker that no, she wasn't dying, and yes, it was perfectly normal to feel that way around one person. Then Sophie had dropped the bombshell: "What're you going to do about it?"

Parker didn't know.

Sometimes she didn't like the way it felt.

It certainly made jobs harder. When he had to flirt information out of someone, the inferno rose up, ready to scald her throat. It was the worst when he was in danger. Whenever Hardison had been mildly threatened, the fire inside her rose to her head, blinding her with rage. The crew quickly learned not to mess with Parker until Hardison was well out of harms way.

That type of fire left its scars. Hardison did his best to kiss them away, but there were some things even he couldn't fix.

Sometimes, though, she wanted to drown in the flames
.
When they kissed, wherever they touched, the fires followed, leaving her skin warm and tingly. It made her feel more alive than any rooftop dive ever had. And when they made love, the inferno engulfed her whole being, wrapping her in it's warmth like a blanket. It was a feeling she never wanted to be without, she decided.

So the next time she and Sophie have their weekly scheduled "girl talk", Sophie asks her again how she plans to act on the fire in her stomach.

Parker doesn't hesitate to reply. "I think I'll just let it burn."

Understanding and Feeling

2011-07-26T04:51:57Z

Title: Understanding and Feeling
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: Parker doesn't understand what he's doing or why he's doing it, but she knows him well enough to understand that this is something he feels he has to do, so she makes no move to stop him.
Author's Note: Takes place after 4x05, The Hot Potato Job, so spoilers for that and any episode before it.

She finds him at the bar after the job, a beer in his hands. And by looking at him, just one look, Parker can tell that this isn't going to be the fun, celebratory conversation she'd wanted. Hardison isn't supposed to be guzzling a beer, he's supposed to be chugging orange soda or fiddling with a new gadget. Something is clearly wrong, and Parker doesn't like it. She thinks idly of just turning around and avoiding him until whatever is wrong blows over, but some feeling she doesn't quite understand tells her not to.

Parker doesn't say anything when she sits down next to him. She supposes she doesn't really know what to say. She opens her mouth twice, trying to see if something comes out. Nothing does.

"Hey," she says at last, hitting him gently in the shoulder.

Hardison nods in Parker's direction and sips his beer in response.

"What's up," she says, drawing out the first word. She eyes his bottle, thinking he looks too much like Nate with it, and debates whether she should take it from him. She doesn't.

He mumbles something incoherent in a raw voice.

Parker feels an emotion she can't place, one that makes her desperately want to find whatever made him sound like that and scatter it anywhere as far away from Hardison as possible.

"Hey," she bribes gently, laying a hand on his left arm, "what's wrong?"

Hardison looks at her hand, disbelief etched across his face, then grabs it with his right. He traces the patterns, the lines, the creases, the scars, looking at them as if he expects them to have suddenly vanished. Parker doesn't understand what he's doing or why he's doing it, but she knows him well enough to understand that this is something he feels he has to do, so she makes no move to stop him.

He replaces her hand on his arm, holds on to it there for a moment, then turns to face her.

"You..." he starts, but he doesn't finish. It's not often he's at loss for words, and it's unsettling to Parker, so she stays mute, letting him say whatever it is he needs to say.

His mouth opens and closes a few times, in much the same way hers had earlier, and she adds that to her mental list of similarities between them. She's thrown, however, when Hardison finally does speak.

"You almost died today."

Parker's confused for a split second, but then she remembers the ice room and his frantic voice in her head. He'd been worried, she knew that, but she hadn't understood exactly how worried he could be.

"Oh, that," Parker dismisses."Naw, I was fine. I had plenty of time. See, look, both hands still attached."

"Parker!" he says loudly. A little too loudly, she thinks, when the people across the room look up at them. She's pleased when he grabs her hand and leads her to the back room and away from the prying eyes in the bar room, but she's also a little concerned- Hardison is not the type of person to raise his voice, especially not to her.

They reach the room and Parker quickly sits. Hardison paces in front of her a few times, his hand on his forehead, as if he's literally trying to force his thoughts out of his head. He stops across the table from her and leans on it.

"You could have died, Parker!" he says softly, yet powerfully. "You could have died because you didn't listen to me."

She's angry then, even though a voice in the back of her head tells her that she shouldn't be, because technically he is right, and yes, she could have died because she wasn’t listening to him, but she ignores it. She doesn’t need to listen to him; she knows her own limits.

"I had plenty of time, Hardison," she says strongly.

"You had one second left! I know, I was counting."

Parker's retort dies on her lips. He was counting the seconds. It suddenly hits her that all this, his drinking, his depressed mood earlier, his anger now, it's because he was scared for her safety. He didn't want her to die.

"Parker," he says, his voice soft. He stops, then looks up at her. "Babygirl, I can't lose you."

Parker looks at him, seeing the truth of his statement in his eyes. She gets up then, thinking about hugging him, or kissing him, or something, but she doesn't.

Instead, she says, "that was a really good second lift, with the boxes. The first one wasn't very good. You should have..."

Hardison understands her, Parker knows. So she knows that he'll understand, as she points out his flaws and cautions him not to repeat the same mistakes, that she really means that she can't bear to lose him either.

Then their conversation turns light and happy, the kind she'd originally come looking for, and they move back out to the bar. It's still crowded, so they decide to head up to Nate's apartment. She's happy to see him grab an orange soda from the fridge. It means he feels better, and that all is right with the world.

"Hey, wanna watch a movie with me?" he calls, making his way to his computers in the living room.

She almost says no, wanting to avoid the possibility of another heavy conversation, but Charlie's voice saying "don't waste time" rings in her head, so she agrees.

"Sure, okay," Parker says. She plops next to him on the couch (though Sophie had called it a loveseat when she'd had it brought in and set up diagonally to the screens, to Parker, anything soft and meant to sit on was a couch), and waits for him to set up his post-job searches. He starts up the movie when he's done, and she curls into him as he places an arm around her.

When the movie is over, Parker decides it's time to go. She gets up abruptly and moves to the door, Hardison trailing behind her. He promises a trip to an actual movie theater, and he tells her that she can even steal the candy if she'd like. She nods, feeling like she should say something, anything, but not knowing what. So Parker turns to him and hugs him close, and his speech dies away.

"Promise me you’ll be more careful?" he whispers into her hair.

She nods and she can feel him relax more. He pulls away, but leaves a gentle hand on her arm, using the other to brush hair out of her face. She wonders again if she should kiss him, but she doesn’t. She still isn’t quite ready for that. She struggles to find something to say, but can’t, so she turns to go.

She’s got one hand on the doorknob when it hits her. “I couldn’t either,” she says.

Parker leaves then, as quickly as possible, and hears Hardison’s computers beep at him as the door closes behind her.

She doesn’t exactly know what’s going on between them, doesn’t know what to call it or how to react to it, but for the first time in her life, Parker cares about someone enough to need them, and she likes the way that feels.

Once More

2011-07-13T17:24:34Z

Title: Once More
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Ten/Rose, Ten II/Rose
Summary: It wasn't easy to watch the woman you loved marry someone else - even if the man she was marrying was your half-human twin.
Author's Note: Written for a prompt on comment_fic.

He stayed in the back of the room, near enough to see, but far enough to not be seen.

"A toast, then, for the happy couple!" Sharreen shouted, raising her glass.

The Doctor swallowed hard. It wasn't easy to watch the woman you loved marry someone else - even if the man she was marrying was your half-human twin.

"Who wants to go first?" Sharreen called, once glasses had been filled and passed around.

The Doctor sipped his wine and looked around to make sure no one could see him. He had to do this.

He slipped around the crowd, squeezing in somewhere near the back. He cleared his throat and did his best to disguise his voice.

"To Rose and John. To a happy marriage. Live a good life."

Rose gave a quizzical, hopeful look in his direction, but stayed where she was.

The crowd, Rose and the Duplicate Doctor included, cheered and drank to that, and the Doctor took his chance to slip out of the room unnoticed. His pain intensified as he left the ballroom, a few tears leaking from his eyes.

He had to come here, had to see this before his regeneration. It killed him to watch Rose, his Rose, marry another man, another him. But he needed to see her once more. He needed to feel this sorrow, this longing for a life he could never have.

He didn't know if his next self would.

And that scared him more than anything.

We Can Work it Out

2010-09-11T17:40:24Z

Title: We Can Work it Out
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: Parker hasn't been on a solo job in years, and it bugs her.
Author's Note: Written for a prompt at comment_fic. Takes place four years from now.

Parker hasn't been on a solo job in years, and it bugs her. So she decides to steal the Hope Diamond again, take something simple to ease herself back into thievery. She drives the eight hours, twenty minutes, and thirty-three seconds it takes to get from Nate's apartment in Boston to the front door of the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Parker keeps herself from dying of boredom by alternatively watching and listening to the television Hardison hooked up for her as a Christmas present.When she gets to the diamond exhibit (after stopping in the cafeteria for some ice cream), Parker cases the stone, careful not too spend too much time in the room, lest the guards suspect her of something. She notes the locations of all five security cameras, takes in the infared's in the case, and figures out the night-guard schedule. When she returns to the museum that night, she should be all set.

Parker breaks in with no problem (but, then again, that was always the easiest part), and makes it to the Hope Diamond room, hiding behind a plant so as to not be seen. But suddenly, she's overwhelmed with emotion - fear. She wishes desperately to hear the team's voices whispering in her ear; hopes beyond hope that Sophie will walk in to distract the guards, that Eliot will knock out the men in the security room, that Hardison will take care of the motion sensors, and that Nate would be there with a new plan if things went sour.

She quickly gets out and dashes, quite a feat for the state she's in. Once she reaches the car ("borrowed" from Hardison, and affectionately named Amy), Parker's calmed enough to try to rationalize what happened. When she can't, she shakes her head and speeds away, feeling both lost and defeated.

Why had the simplest job in the world suddenly become so difficult?

Parker slams on the brakes when the answer finally comes to her: somewhere over these seven years, the team, has become co-dependent. Dangerously so.

This was bad; very, very bad.

The next morning, when the team arrives at Nate's apartment, they are not surprised to see Parker, eating fortune cookies in the kitchen. What does surprise them, however is: A) the Smithsonian, Washington, DC sweatshirt she's wearing ("For you, Hardison" she'd later say, shoving it over his head (it's a size too big, but wearable, and anyway, it's the thought that counts)), and B) the fact that she looks like Bunny was stolen, burnt, and run over by cars.

"Parker, mama, what's wrong?" Hardison asks gently, sitting himself next to her. Nate, Sophie, and Eliot look on in interest, but stay quiet; after seven years, they know that, of all of them, Hardison has the best chance of breaking through to the distraught girl.

"Something's not right. I'm broken. We're all broken," she mumbles, reaching for another fortune cookie.

Hardison is clearly confused, so glances to Sophie for help. "Parker," she says, sitting across from her, and grabbing her hand, "we're fine, the team. Why do you think we're broken?"

"Because," she says simply, pulling her hand away. Hardison grabs it and gently strokes it, hoping to literally coax the answer out of her.

"Because why?" he asks quietly.

"Because I couldn't do it. I tried to steal the Hope Diamond, because it was easy, but I-I..." Parker trails off, looking away.

"But you couldn't." Eliot states knowingly. "I tried a job on my own that I uh, had trouble on."

"Yeah, me too," says Hardison with a nod. "There was this painting I wanted; I tried to take it, but I almost got caught."

"There was a statue, very rare, very priceless, very much a black-market item. I tried to grift my way through getting it. But I couldn't, and I had to get out," Sophie offers.

"See!" Parker exclaims. "We're broken. We can't work without each other. That's dangerous."

"Parker, maybe you have trouble doing jobs on your own. But do you really think you need to anymore? You, all of you, you're the good guys now. You don't need to steal the Hope Diamond, Eliot doesn't need to retrieve anything, Hardison doesn't need that painting, and Sophie doesn't need that statue. Look at this place since she's moved in; where would she even put it?" Nate says, trying to lighten the conversation.

"But-" Parker tries to protest.

"And besides, Parker," Sophie starts, still shooting Nate a death glare, "if you want to steal something, just ask us. We'll always help you."

"You will?" she says, looking to Hardison.

"We will," he nods. "I'll even set up a training course, if you want, to sharpen those skills back up."

"That's not a bad idea. Spend a month sharpening your skills before we take another job," Nate says.

And so they do. When they come back, they're stronger than ever, and ready to take down the bad guys.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

2010-07-03T04:10:01Z

Title: Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: "We're like ice cream and cookies," Parker says.
Author's Note: Written for a prompt at comment_fic. Takes place after 3x01 - The Jailhouse Job.

“We’re like ice cream and cookies,” Parker says. She and Hardison are sitting at a desk in the new office after a meeting, talking to one another before they go home.

Hardison chuckles, then takes a swig of orange soda. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods, taking the bottle from his hand drinking from it.

“Do you wanna explain that, or what?” Hardison asks. He knows better than to expect that she’ll actually explain herself without being prompted.

“Well, both are equally as good on their own, but!” she says. She tries to pause for dramatic effect, but continues on at Hardison’s questioning look. “But they’re much better when you put them together.”

“Like an ice cream sandwich?” Hardison asks, taking the bottle back and setting it on the counter.

She gives him this incredulous, ‘are you crazy’ type of look. “No. What would make you think that? I didn’t mention a sandwich, did I?”

“No, Parker, it’s like… you know, with the ice cream in the… you know what, never mind,” Hardison tries to explain what he meant, but he knows Parker well enough to know when to give up. He does, however, make a mental note to take her for ice cream sandwiches at some point in the future.

“So where I live is the cookies. And where you live is the ice cream. But ice cream tastes much better when it’s got cookies mixed into it.”

“Parker,” Hardison says, confusion written clear across his face, “girl, are you trying to tell me you want to live with me?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m trying to tell you that I’ve already moved in.” She beams up at him and any reservations that he may have had (not that he had any) dissolve instantly.

He smiles and rolls his eyes. “Course you have.” Hardison stands, puts the now empty bottle in the recycling, and moves to the door. She joins him. He hands her a coat from the coat rack and puts his own on. “Since we’re living together,” he offers, smiling, “would you like a ride to our home?”

Parker smiles back at him. “I would love a ride back to our cookie dough ice cream.”

Pretend

2010-07-02T18:17:43Z

A ficlet to a prompt on comment_fic. I need to find a better way to store these. :P

Pretend