The Borgias: Secrets in Crimson: Unburied Trouble

Thank you to @jabberwockypie for cheerleading this AU’s beginning, and to @empresslucrezia for inspiring where this AU is going to go and this is the first necessary prequisite to get to.

AO3 | DW

Fandom: The Borgias (Showtime)
AU: Secrets in Crimson
Word Count: 1645
Characters: Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza, Guiliano della Rovere | Pope Julius II

Pope Julius II would be having a better day if Ascanio Sforza had had the grace to just stay dead.

“Cardinal Sforza.”

The voice is flat, disbelieving, and Ascanio lets himself smile a moment before he turns away from the windows of the papal apartments to face della Rovere.

“Your Holiness.”

Ascanio makes a proper bow, coming forward to kneel and kiss the ring extended to him automatically. Though it is snatched back as his lips brush it, as della Rovere recalls that Ascanio should be dead. Has, in fact, been dead and buried for weeks now. Possibly months. Time passes differently when one is dead.

“You were buried. Died of plague.”

Della Rovere is watching him with a horrified fascination, and Ascanio allows himself another sardonic little smile. It had been worth the effort to sneak into the papal apartments, if only to see the expression on della Rovere’s face.

“I remember.” Ascanio returns to the window he’d been looking out of, settling on the wide ledge beneath it. “I hear whispers that you plan to build me a mausoleum as part of your expansion of the basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo. I’m almost flattered.”

“You were a worthy and honest opponent.” Della Rovere moves to sit in the straight-backed chair near the cold hearth that Ascanio remembers him having brought in after he’d had the papal apartments stripped of the Borgia finery and decoration. “It’s the least I can do.”

Ascanio tilts his head in acknowledgement of that. It is nice, to know that he hasn’t been entirely forgotten already, for all that he had failed in his final years to maintain his influence after the fall of his cousins, one by one.

“How are you here again, if I might ask?” Della Rovere is watching him with sharp eyes and the carefully bland mask that Ascanio knows well from consistory and conclave.

“You would have to ask my patron about the how. I declined to ask exactly what is required for him to ressurect someone he chooses to bring back.” Though he does expect that if they opened his grave, they would find the remains of his decaying body. He hadn’t woken up in his grave, after all.

“So you are more than a mere apparition. Who is your patron?”

“I didn’t ask his name.” Ascanio had not felt that the being was evil, and it had been hard enough to look at him when Ascanio felt he was looking into a warped mirror. Himself, in the black robes of a Dominican monk. “Only the cost of what he offered.”

“And what was that cost?”

“Never to die, even if I should wish an end.” Never to enter Heaven, though it also promised he would never be condemned to Hell, either. Ascanio isn’t entirely sure either exists in the first place, though it makes less difference now than it did when he had lived and died.

“Nothing more?” Della Rovere raises an eyebrow, and Ascanio smirks in return, if only for a moment.

“If there is to be more, he has yet to tell me.” Ascanio will not share that he had asked for this because there were still Borgias left in the world whose ambitions he worried for. Never mind that Cesare Borgia was locked away in Spain, or that Lucrezia Borgia seems to have settled happily into the role of wife and mother and duchess. So long as they live, he would not ask to be released from this bargain.

“And why are you here?” The small gesture della Rovere makes could indicate the apartments, the Vatican, or Rome herself. Perhaps all of them.

“I did not cease to be Cardinal Sforza simply because I died, Your Holiness. I still hold those oaths sacred. What use you would choose to make of a Cardinal who was dead and now cannot die, I cannot say.” Ascanio studies the ring he still wears on his finger. It had been the one thing he wore when he woke, since apparently even his patron has limits to his power. “I will need a new hat, and new robes, however. I’m afraid they did not survive my ressurection.”

Della Rovere’s face goes through an interesting contortion, as if he is envisioning how Ascanio might have woken into this new life, and isn’t certain if he regrets it or not.

“I think it would be inadviseable to bring your continued existence to the knowledge of your brother Cardinals.” Della Rovere smiles, thin and mirthless. “I would not wish to have a consistory full of Cardinals that will never die.”

Ascanio chuckles a moment, shaking his head. “I do not think most of them would be offered this bargain, Your Holiness.”

“Too much of God, or too little?”

“Both, I think, if not necessarily in the same person.” Ascanio shrugs, leaning back a little in the embrasure, feeling the press of the wall against his shoulders. It’s nice that such things are solid again, rather than something he could drift through without truly noticing. “Most are content enough to die when it is their time, and ascend to Heaven as they’re certain is their right. I was not.”

“Afraid you might find yourself in Hell, rather than Heaven?” Della Rovere is still watching him closely, and Ascanio finds the continued scrutiny amusing. He’s not going to vanish, or suddenly become some hellish creature to torment his former rival.

“No. I was never concerned about the disposition of my immortal soul.” He laces his fingers together around his knee, watching della Rovere in turn. “I had more worldly concerns when I was alive, and I could not let them go when I died.”

Della Rovere scoffs, shaking his head. “I will not return to you your Cardinal’s hat if all you plan to do is return to the petty intrigues and acquisition of power that plagues all men.”

“Those are not the concerns which kept me here.” Ascanio refrains from smiling at the disbelief on della Rovere’s face. “I was Vice Chancellor to a Pope with acknowledged children, Your Holiness. There are still three of those children living.”

One of them without any evident ambition, but Ascanio will not entirely discount Gioffre Borgia until he is certain the young man is dead, buried, and passed on to whatever might await him. It is Cesare Borgia – even imprisoned, he will never be truly rendered harmless save by a lasting death – and Lucrezia Borgia who concern him most.

“You wished to return for the Borgia family.” There is venom in della Rovere’s voice, as well as a wealth of disgust, but both are expected. Ascanio knows just how much della Rovere despises the Borgias.

“How else am I to be certain that they don’t cause further harm in their ambitions?” Ascanio gives della Rovere a bland smile. “They have few enough people who are willing to do such a thing.”

“You don’t intend to assist them?”

“At the moment, I am in no position to truly assist any of them. I am a Cardinal without income or influence, unless Your Holiness chooses to return some of the benefices which were mine in life.”

Della Rovere is silent a moment, finally looking away from Ascanio to study the summer sky outside the window instead. “If I were to gift you such benefices again, would you use the money to aid Cesare Borgia?”

“He is currently imprisoned in Segovia, is he not?” No doubt plotting escape, but Ascanio no longer has the ability to drift where his thoughts take him to see what Cesare is currently up to. “Your Holiness has only to ensure that I must remain in Rome to be certain I can do nothing to provide him assistance.”

Return to him his Cardinal’s hat and robes and place in the consistory. Let someone else be Vice Chancellor, he doesn’t care, but for all that he would see that the Borgias that live have a minder, he is still a Prince of the Church, and has no wish to leave that behind.

“And what do I get in return for your continued presence in Rome? Besides knowing that you will not go directly to whoever might aid Cesare Borgia in escaping his just imprisonment?”

“An ally in your consistory, no matter how much your other Cardinals protest what changes you might deem appropriate for them and our Holy Mother Church. Both now, and in conclave once you have departed this world.” Ascanio meets della Rovere’s gaze steadily. “Someone who can be relied upon not to assist you in departing this world, no matter what enemies you might make.”

“Not even if you’re asked to do so by a Borgia?”

“I have a vested interest in being certain you’re content in your death when the natural course of the world brings it, Your Holiness. To aid in your assassination would be against my best interests.”

“And if nothing else, I can trust you to act in your own best interests.”

That was not a question, and Ascanio does not feel the need to reply. Della Rovere knows full well that Ascanio will act in his own – and his family’s, what’s left of it – best interests. That his best interests may also encompass what is best for those Borgias that still live also needs not be spoken to be known. Pope Alexander had seen to that years ago.

“Very well.” Della Rovere straightens a little in his chair. “I would keep your renewed life a secret from the College of Cardinals at the moment, and put your talents to use elsewhere. When I deem it the proper time, then you will rejoin your brother Cardinals to continue the work of our Holy Mother Church.”

It will suffice, for now, even if it isn’t entirely what Ascanio wants. And if della Rovere proves to be a fool, Ascanio can tell the consistory himself of his continued existence.

“As you wish, Your Holiness.”

Highlander: The Priest, the Goddess, and the Scholar: Anat’s Tears

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Highlander, Phoenician Mythology
AU: The Priest, the Goddess, and the Scholar
Word Count: 790
Characters: Anat, Darius, Marcus Constantine

“I’m not entirely dead.”

She’s in his garden, planting dormant bulbs in every spare bit of soil that isn’t occupied by herbs. Barely leaving enough of a path winding between her plantings to reach the herb beds. That they’re not even real until she plunges her hand into freshly dug holes is a profligate use of her power that he doesn’t expect.

“I know you’re watching me, Darius.” Her voice is rough with grief, and she shifts to allow herself a better line of sight. Where she can see him in her peripheral vision. “I’m not like MacLeod or most of your friends who cannot see beyond the living world.”

Darius doesn’t move from the doorway, not yet. He still hasn’t determined his new limits, and while he thinks the garden might be within them, that doesn’t excuse pushing too far, too soon. Not when he’s utterly out of his depth.

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon.” He knew she’d come; he’d be a fool if he hadn’t expected it. But for her to arrive as quickly as she had speaks, he thinks, of more use of power than she would normally bother with.

“Mot told me. About the dreams as well.” Anat pauses a moment before pushing to her feet and turning. He doesn’t expect the raw fury on her face. “You let us do nothing when we might have. It would have been worth burning it all to save you. And now we can do nothing to bring you back.”

“I’m not entirely dead,” he points out quietly, folding his hands in his sleeves as he meets her gaze. Steady and calm, even in the face of a deity’s wrath.

“And I am to simply accept that you will be forever caught between life and death, trapped in the confines of one small church and the gardens that surround it?”

Anat takes a step toward him, her form wavering slightly as if in the shimmer of heat off desert sands. Around her, he can see the plants growing, the bulbs she’s planted shooting up green spikes surrounded by leaves and topped with trailing sprays of brilliantly red flowers. Not merely use of her power, he thinks, but manifestation of her anger and grief.

A sound in the church behind Darius breaks the moment, and Anat’s wavering control firms, her form as solidly human as that of the man who’s entered the church. The garden around her still blooms, the new plants a broad splash of crimson that evokes the thought of newly-spilt blood, even as she steps around Darius, ignoring him and the man – Marcus, come to mourn or to say goodbye, Darius thinks – as she walks away.

Marcus glances at the woman walking from the door that leads to Darius’ rooms and the garden beyond, frowning a moment as something about her tugs at his memory. She’s ignoring him, and moving too quickly for him to make the connection before she’s out the door. He hesitates a moment, before continuing as he’d intended, into the rooms that had belonged to Darius for so long. Where they’d talked long hours, with tea and chess to distract them from whatever subjects the conversation covered.

He’d almost think Darius was still here, watching him as he looked around the room. There’d be little enough to remove, if Marcus hadn’t been certain that Darius would prefer the few belongings he’d had be left for his successor. Marcus reaches out to touch the chess board a moment before moving past it toward the open garden door, his attention caught by the brilliant color of some flower.

Flowers that are everywhere, sprays of tiny scarlet blooms that trail like the branches of a weeping willow from the tops of sturdy spikes. They are naggingly familiar, though he has to think for a long moment before he can place them. Flowers that bloom through any weather, though the leaves that wreath the base of the spikes die back in the cold of winter or the dry heat of the desert.

He crouches a moment to touch one of the sprays, his fingers coming away damp with the nectar that collects in the tiny wells. It tastes of salt, and brings to mind tears and blood. The same as the flowers that graced a single spike the height of a man in an Egyptian temple. Marcus knows there will be no seeds, no way to transplant such a flower to another garden. There never has been, for all the trouble some mortals have gone through to do so.

“What name did she bear to you, old friend?” he murmurs as he stands. Remembering the flowers, and his one encounter with the woman who made them grow, centuries past now.

Doctor Who: In the Doctor’s Place: Alone

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Doctor Who
AU: In the Doctor’s Place
Series: The Travel Collection
Word Count: 152
Characters: Romana

She has stayed on Earth for a century and more, letting her TARDIS heal, and mourning all she has lost. Romana isn’t certain she wants to leave yet, but all too soon she will begin to encroach on the Doctor’s favorite centuries, and she cannot have him meet her too soon. Cannot have him learn his fate, no matter how much she wants to see him again, how much she wants to grab him and tell him to run, and never stop. Never go home.

Most especially, she wants to shake him and ask him why he thought her life more important than his own. Why he’d lied, and told her he would join her, that he would be able to escape before the lock took effect. A question she doubts he could answer in any but the regeneration that had left her the last of their kind, alone in the universe.

Doctor Who: In the Doctor’s Place: Absolute Silence

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Doctor Who
AU: In the Doctor’s Place
Series: Fireside Tales
Word Count: 264
Characters: Romana II
Warnings:

The end comes not with a bang or a whimper, but with no sound at all.

The end comes not with a bang or a whimper, but with no sound at all. A strange, deafening silence that makes her stagger, and cling tightly to the rail of her TARDIS. She’s barely aware she’s fallen to her knees, only aware of the absolute silence in her mind where there’s always been something. Never voices, never so distinct, but the constant hum of the presence of her people.

Now, there is nothing, and she is alone. Terribly alone in a sense she had never imagined she would be, even as she worked feverishly on the Doctor’s final plan to end the war. To lock it all away where it couldn’t tear the universe apart.

It should have been him to take the final step, to make the final seal, but he’d never had the chance. Never been allowed to take the chance, and had sacrificed his life to make sure there was an opportunity for her to take that last step, even as he told her he would return in time. Offering up her people as well as the Daleks to save the universe from destruction.

Would that she could have followed them, but she could not lock it from the inside, only from the outside, and there was no one else they could trust to do this.

Dragging herself to her feet, Romana sets coordinates on her TARDIS, and manages to land herself safely before she stumbles into the back, and finds her bed. Tumbling into a sleep that she will later suspect is only nightmare-free because her TARDIS is interfering.

Highlander: Sea and Wolf: A Wilderness Stripped From the World

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Highlander
AU: Sea and Wolf
Word Count: 2183
Characters: Alysse (OC), Joe Dawson, Methos
Warnings: Suicide, Original Character Death

“He was… everything. Wild wolf of the steppe, sharp and fierce as winter winds on a northern sea. The thunder of hooves beneath me; wild, joyous laughter reveling in all we were.”

“You’ll know when it’s time to come, before I have to find you.”

The last words Kronos had spoken to her still echo in the still watches of the night, when her ship sits silent on flat and brooding seas. A cruel lash of what will never happen, as her Watcher quietly told her after making port one day. He’d slipped away to make his report, and to gather what he could about “Melvin Koren”, no doubt with the explanation that he’d like to know if he needed to make himself scarce from her ship. The heart-shattering blow was so softly delivered she almost didn’t feel it at first.

Now, she sails alone in a boat that had been carefully designed for her, and built for her as a present. Lying on her back on the polished deck to stare blind-eyed at the stars that glint in cold patterns set in a midnight sky of inky black. Trying to piece together a soul that doesn’t wish to mend, struggling to remember why she clings so fiercely to life.

A wildness has been stripped from the world, and taken with it her fire – it seems, sometimes, has even taken the fierceness from the mother on whose breast she rocks now. Grey seas that mourn with her, cradling her as gently as any mother with upset child. Encouraging tears that will not come, trying to ease the numbing emptiness that gnaws at her heart.

She doesn’t know how many days pass sitting on the edge of the deck, half-heartedly fishing for her meals. How many nights blur into one another staring at uncaring stars. Only that gradually, the numbness fades, letting emotion once more trickle in around the edges. Bright flashes of overwhelming fury that someone has stolen her lover – her first, her only, because lover implies equal, and she had no other she’d consider such. Black sorrow deep enough to drown in the tears that it drags unwilling to the surface.

Screams are swallowed by the endless ocean as easily as weeping, until she wears herself thin enough to fall once more into a numbness that has become as comforting as a blanket. As comforting as Kronos’ quickening curling and crackling around the edges of her own, overwhelming and fierce.

More time passes without her knowledge, until she wears her grief thin enough to think of more than drifting with the currents and the winds, and turning away from any land she spots in the distance. When she’s willing to take herself into a port, though it takes long hours to recall where she is, and what ports might be near enough to resupply.

The docks are silent, if not still, when she guides her little boat into a marina long hours after the sun has set. There is no one to take her port-fee, and she doesn’t leave her little boat until dawn breaks, trying to remember who she’d been in that lifetime before this and to decide if she wishes to be that person again. In the end, she digs out a different persona, one she hasn’t used yet – one who wouldn’t have to worry about customs – and pays the fees that allow her to slip onto the streets of the city.

She wanders, a pair of sandles dangling from one hand so if she must put them on, they’re with her. Randomly taking one street or another, not worried about becoming lost and turned around in the web of brick and stone, steel and glass. The solid weight of her sword hidden in a coat long since out of fashion, and the smaller, more compact form of a favored pistol are enough armor for now.

A bar attracts her attention with pink neon, and she pauses to see if it’s open at this mid-morning hour. Not yet, but soon, and she mentally marks it as a place to return later. No amount of drink will drown the grief that still pricks with needle-sharp claws, but neither will it kill her. At least, not unless some fool of an Immortal challenges her, and then, she’s not entirely sure if she would truly give a good accounting of herself or simply let herself be killed.

The sky is fading into dusky blues and purples when she finds her way back to the bar, slipping in to the quiet strains of guitar and a gravel voice. The sort of drink she craves is unlikely to be found here, the reminder of her youth not readily available, but the sharp burn of vodka is good enough. Listening to the musician’s voice weave a spell of sorrow and aching grief that echoes her own heart.

That same gravel voice takes over behind the bar after the set, the musician’s worn hands pour another shot when she puts another crisp bill on the counter. Eyes that remind her of the northern seas watch her for a long moment before he asks her if she wants to talk about it. The offer of a stranger, a mortal who will never quite comprehend the timeframe, but who thinks they might have some knowledge of the depth of grief.

Still, she studies him a moment before she shrugs. If he doesn’t understand, or thinks her crazy, it doesn’t much matter to her. “His name was Kronos,” she says quietly, almost too quietly to be heard over the background. “He was… everything. Wild wolf of the steppe, sharp and fierce as winter winds on a northern sea. The thunder of hooves beneath me; wild, joyous laughter reveling in all we were.”

She looks down at her vodka, not wanting to see the mortal’s expression, but only the memories. “I was a goddess when he found me. Wild daughter of the ocean, merciless and generous, creator and destroyer. He made himself a god in the eyes of my people, brought me to my knees and taught me so much more.” A soft laugh escapes her, the sound more ragged than it has any right to be. Edged with barbs of grief. “My god, my lover. Wind and thunder and flame.”

“And now he’s dead.” The gravel voice is quiet, and draws her attention back to the lined mortal face. Knowledge more than intuition in wary, northern-ocean eyes, though how he could know, she doesn’t understand for a long moment. Not until she darts out one rope-callused hand to grip his, turning the wrist to see the tattoo on the inside.

“You wouldn’t have known him by that name,” she whispers, not letting go, watching him with a fierce anger clawing its way up her throat, choking any effort at speaking louder.

“A friend of mine does.” He doesn’t try to pull away, meets her gaze without nearly as much fear as she expects. No doubt some weapon is hidden under the bar to give him some measure of courage. “We didn’t know you knew him by that name.” The Watchers didn’t know how long she’d known Kronos – she can read that between the lines easily as breathing.

They’re still for a long moment, Watcher and Immortal, silent amongst the chatter of mortals who do not know, nor would care to if they had any inkling of what was really going on. Before she lets go, and settles back onto the stool, before the Watcher relaxes faintly, almost imperceptably.

“Your friend.” She snorts faintly, wondering slightly at the idea that an Immortal would call a mortal friend, much less a Watcher. Hers is only crew, subordinate and protected, but never equal.

Silence once more envelopes her and the Watcher, before she looks up again. “Would this friend of yours challenge me?”

The Watcher shrugs, giving her a wary look. “Don’t think so.”

“Pity.” She drains her shot of vodka, holding it out for another – she hasn’t spent the entire bill she’d handed him earlier, not nearly. She’d welcome his friend, one who she has little doubt is Immortal, right now if he’d be so obliging as to offer her a fight. Win or lose, live or die, none of that matters, only the fight itself, the fierce clash of fire and steel where life sings through her veins.

The night passes in vodka and soft-voiced tales of sea and steppe, horse and ship. Passion, fire-bright and sharp as a winter wind. Grief that breaks that all to razor-edged shards that slice deep into a soul already steeped in blood. Cuts away at the softer parts that have grown only slowly over long centuries, withers emotions that have only just begun to blossom. An anger that burns cold with no direction, and a bone-deep ache for a wild freedom that’s been lost in more ways than one.

She returns to her boat feeling hollowed out, memories flashing across her mind like knife blades, numbness refusing to curl about her in its comforting folds. Sleep refuses to come, and she spends her night staring up at a sky with fewer stars to be seen through the haze of light from the city nearby. Dawn creeps across the sky in brilliant ribbons, and with it comes a slow encroachment of crackling presence, a storm that grumbles long on the sea before it rolls toward ill-prepared shores, vast as the horizon.

A man stands on the dock, hawk-faced and silent. Dark hair cut short, eyes muddied river water older than any ocean. Watching her for a long moment before he raises an eyebrow, and tilts his head toward the shore. “Are you coming, or do we talk with you on your boat and me here?”

Waiting for a long moment, she nods. “A moment.” To remove salt-soaked clothing in favor of something that’s at least been rinsed clear, and wrap her own coat with its hidden cargo about her. Silent as they move along the dock to shore, and into streets waking from the night’s slumber. Tracing a path to the same bar that she’d murmured stories of Kronos to a patient bartender – Watcher, who’d write them down – and ducking inside despite a door locked when they arrive.

There’s a table with the chairs around it rather than on it, tea delicately tinting the air with its aroma, rather than a more welcome bottle of vodka or other strong spirits. She settles, though, and allows a cup to be poured for her. Watching the Immortal who sits across from her as she cradles the cup in her hands, waiting for him to speak and to see from that which way he intended to direct the conversation.

And when he does, there’s a wistfulness to his voice that speaks to a grief that’s perhaps not as jagged edged as her own only because he’s known for longer that the death that tears at her would happen. Had to happen. Sharing a story of Kronos as he was before she ever met him, when he burned bright as wildfire with passion more than rage, chaos and change sweeping across the world. Wildfire instead of wolf, sun-bright summer god rather than savage northern wind.

In return, she tells him her own memories, same as she had the Watcher before. Knowing they’ll not be written down, but remembered as they should be. All the while, wreathed in the perfume of tea for all that she craves something stronger to blunt the still-sharp edges. Tea that becomes something salty and bitter when she sheds silent, unnoticed tears.

“I want to see the wildness of the world again. It grows too small and too tamed to mortal hands.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and her grip on the cup tightens. “But there is no wildness left. Only children with walls and tilled fields in their hearts.”

He’s silent a long moment, the edges of his horizon-storm quickening sparking still against her own still and silent seas. “The world changes, and he couldn’t change with it.”

“He was the wild, untrammeled and beautiful.” She met the gaze of muddy-river eyes, her own lightning-charred black and dead. “As you are the horizon-storm, and I the dying seas. Children burned the wild in quicking-fire, and Mother will take me home before she lets the land-bound have me. What will you do when the world seeks to destroy the horizon-storm too?”

“Survive.” He takes a last sip of his tea, still watching her. Muddy river, horizon-storm, ocean bedrock. Ancient wild long gone and still lurking.

She remains silent for a long moment before setting the bitter brew down, a calm washing over her like the eye of some great hurricane. “Then let the ocean feed horizon-storm, and let me rest. No child should tame the seas, and Mother won’t begrudge you.”

In the end, he refuses to simply kill her, and it takes careful work to corner him and force the choice of survival or falling to her flickering blade on him. She would laugh as steel comes whistling toward her exposed neck, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. Pain lasts but a moment, and then all is dark and quickening-fire before the end.

Doctor Who: In the Doctor’s Place: A Thread of Possibility

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Doctor Who
AU: In the Doctor’s Place
Series: Fireside Tales
Word Count: 675
Characters: Romana II, Unnamed Original Characters

There’s a sorrow on her face that makes Romana flinch, the sort of loss that she can only wish she did not understand.

The human who is sitting against the door of her TARDIS is older, a woman with a lined face that is more tired than anything else. Romana watches her through the external sensors, mentally cataloguing what she can tell from simply watching.

Black hair just beginning to be touched with gray, that’s looking a little frayed, straying from the otherwise neat chignon at the nape of her neck. The loose strands seem to create a dark halo around her head, and Romana feels her lips twitch up in a wry smile at her fancy.

The dress she wears isn’t the current fashion, but it’s well cared for, and while faded, it’s still servicable. A woman who is perhaps down on her luck, or never has been able to live the life of the upper classes, despite her attempts to appear as such. Certainly not a woman of the aristocracy.

Romana rests her hands on the controls, wishing she could see the woman’s face properly, but the human is facing away from the TARDIS, and keeps her expression hidden. If Romana leaves now, she will topple the woman over, or worse, pull her in her wake, and she won’t do that. Won’t leave her stranded in a place and time that will not be her own, and may well be inimical to human life.

It’s nearly an hour before the woman shifts, a quiet sigh escaping her as she moves to stand up, resting one hand on the column Romana’s TARDIS has appeared to be. There’s a sorrow on her face that makes Romana flinch, the sort of loss that she can only wish she did not understand.

Looking down at the small mound Romana had set her TARDIS near, the woman smiles, her face softening. “At least someone thought well enough of you to place a monument, my boy.” She pats Romana’s TARDIS, fingers tracing the flutes a moment. “Perhaps that girl you made a fool of yourself over?”

She hadn’t realized she’d parked herself in a graveyard – the columns are varied, and some are strange, but hadn’t registered as monuments to the dead. Romana winces again, closing her eyes, though that doesn’t shut out the woman’s voice, quiet over the sensors.

“Your father still refuses to come, but you know how he is. So bound by tradition.” Another sigh. “At least he’s not fool enough to stop my coming.” A long pause, long enough for Romana to look up again, studying the woman’s expression once more. Still that deep sorrow, but tempered by affection and amusement.

“Your sister ran off with Avra Koshel’s son two months ago, and we’ve not seen them since. Your father is promising to gut the boy if he ever finds him, so I do hope they have the sense to stay hidden until his passing.”

Romana tilts her head, and carefully adjusts the controls. There is something there, a thread of possibility that is fragile, but not impossible. Waiting until the woman has finished talking to her dead son and left before following that thread back to a place and time.

A boy catches a girl who’s dropped from her second-story bedroom window, and the two turn as Romana opens the door to the TARDIS, clinging nervously to each other. She smiles, and beckons. “They won’t find you here, and I can take you anywhere you want to go.”

The two look at each other, waiting a heartbeat before they dash for the open door, not asking any of the questions they perhaps should have. The door is shut seconds before the light goes on in the girl’s bedroom, and a bellow echoes into the night. Romana grins, and goes to set the controls.

“Do you have anywhere you want to go?” She looks over at her guests, letting the long-dormant sense of adventure she has rise to the fore, a spark of challenge in her eyes.

“Earth.” The girl returns her smile with a slow, slightly manic one of her own. “I’ve always wanted to see the mother-world.”

Stargate SG-1: Born a Queen: Returning Home

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Stargate SG-1
AU: Born a Queen
Word Count: 543
Characters: Baal, Bra’tac, Daniel Jackson, Lilith (OC)

Lilith leaves Earth to return to her father one final time.

Lilith stands straight as she can, watching the chappa’ai spin, the coordinates familiar as her own name. Not home, but a safe enough place to pass from the hands of the tau’ri to those of her father. A last exchange, a last goodbye to those she has come to count as family, though she still finds Earth wanting compared to home.

“What are you thinking about?” Dan’yel is kind enough to speak goa’uld with her, though he is the only one to do so even now. He’s also taught her other languages, a tactic of diplomacy she has come to appreciate.

“That I will not return to Earth again as hostage.” Lilith tilts her chin up as the wormhole flares before stabilizing in the center of the chappa’ai, a blue welcome that beckons on to home. “If I return, it will be as a Queen treating with allies.”

She pauses, turning to look over her shoulder at the window above the control center. General Hammond, standing at the center among others who have come to see her off on this last journey. Waiting a long moment, words caught in her throat before she manages to speak, voice steadier than she’d expected it to be. “I will miss you.”

Turning back to face the chappa’ai, Lilith takes a deep breath, waiting for the marines who always accompany them to send back the all-clear before she steps onto the ramp, counting the seconds to keep from running like an undignified child to the path to home.

On the other side, her father waits with his own entourage, and the leaders of the planet make a third party to this exchange. J’affa, who have a vested interest in the continuing circumspection by her father, and in what ceremony might accompany this last fraught visit here.

Meeting the gaze of the old man who is the leader of the j’affa, she tilts her head in a greeting of equals. “Master Bra’tac. You have my thanks for offering this place as neutral ground between my father and the tau’ri. I shall not forget your kindness, nor the generosity of the j’affa who opened their home to a great risk in allowing this.”

Bra’tac smiles a little, though it holds no more warmth than is diplomatic. He could act the indulgent uncle when she was younger, and the tau’ri had come before her father arrived. She will miss that closeness, even as she uses the lessons that it had taught her. A sacrifice to the role she had been created to fill, and has looked forward to even as a child.

“You are welcome for the place and the time, Lady Lilith. May our paths never cross in battle.” His smile widens a little at the end, and Lilith nods in silent assent. She hopes it is a promise she can fill, to never bring war to the doorstep of the free j’affa.

Turning away from Bra’tac, she smiles widely, though she keeps her steps measured, counting silently once more. “Father.”

Baal is watching her with pride, his hands clasped behind him as he waits for her to stop in front of him. Taking her hands when she offers them, studying her for a long moment. “Welcome home.”

Stargate SG-1: Born a Queen: Subterfuge

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Stargate SG-1
AU: Born a Queen
Word Count: 677
Characters: Baal, Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Lilith (OC), Samantha Carter | Sam

A conversation between Baal and SG-1 about Lilith.

“What do you mean she’s only six?!” Jack knows exactly what the discrepancy in Lilith’s actual age and apparent age means, he just wants to know why the hell Baal had been accelerating her growth in the first place.

From the safety – at least, according to her, though Jack isn’t so certain – of her father’s arms, Lilith sticks out her tongue at Jack. He restrains the urge to roll his eyes at her only because it would encourage her.

“I have enemies, O’Neill.” Baal is far too amused for Jack’s liking as he points out the obvious. “Surely you would not suggest I leave my daughter helpless.”

“No, but there have to be other ways to ensure her safety.” Daniel is encouraging Lilith, the little brat, smiling at her antics. Jack doesn’t tell him to stop only because it wouldn’t help at this point.

“None would have been as effective as those I used.” Baal is smirking, which makes Jack suspicious. Well, Baal simply existing makes Jack suspicious, but the smirk, and the fact Baal hasn’t let Lilith out of his reach since their arrival only makes the suspicion deeper.

He watches for a moment before something clicks, and he wants to groan. “Not without telling anyone she’s your kid?”

Baal doesn’t say anything, just watches Jack with a frustratingly enigmatic smirk on his face. In his lap, Lilith frowns after a moment’s thought, before twisting around to look up st Baal.

“You couldn’t even tell me, papa?” The hurt and plaintive note in her voice makes Jack wince a little, even as the fact it wipes the smirk off Baal’s face brings a certain amount of satisfaction – though that sours when Baal’s response is in goa’uld, never mind that the tone is one Jack is familiar with using.

“He’s telling her if she tried too hard to act right, she might not have been taken to the best place to keep her safe.” Daniel keeps his voice low so it won’t carry beyond the team. “He’s also saying he wouldn’t have left her on Earth if he didn’t think we could protect her.”

“Yet, you didn’t send even so much as a letter to your daughter for three years?” Sam sounds more than a little annoyed. “You just dump her in the way of one of our teams, and ignore her.”

“I did not dump her anywhere, Major Carter.” Baal’s voice is sharp, almost reprimanding, and Jack sits up a little straighter, wishing he had a zat with him. “Nor have I ignored Lilith’s care in the time she was on your planet.”

Baal smiles, and there’s a shark-like quality to it Jack really doesn’t like. It makes him wonder just what over the three years he’s supposed to have been Lilith’s guardian Baal has had a hand in. The tutor the school system had recommended? The child psychologist the NID had insisted examine Lilith at least every other month?

“Why use Sam’s DNA to make Lilith?” Daniel has a curious expression on his face that never bodes well for Jack’s peace of mind.

“She reminds me of a wife I once had, long ago.” Baal shrugs, though there’s something in his expression that makes Jack wonder about what he’s said – as well as making him certain that asking would be counter-productive.

Lilith makes a face, and pokes Baal in the arm, which only makes him say something quietly in goa’uld that Daniel doesn’t translate for the rest of them.

“Hey, while you’re answering questions – why are you being so helpful?” Jack doesn’t buy that Baal might be helping them to be helpful, but at the moment, he doesn’t have a better answer. And that worries Jack quite a bit,

“Why not?” Baal looks amused again, and Jack wants to wipe the smirk off his face – would probably attempt to, if Lilith weren’t right there. It’s no doubt a large part of why Baal hasn’t let her go the entire time. “You have taken care of my daughter, and that is worth some repayment.”

Stargate SG-1: Born a Queen: A Queen to Build an Empire

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Stargate SG-1
AU: Born a Queen
Series: The Travel Collection
Word Count: 505
Characters: Baal

Baal, from learning of the tau’ri to his decision to create Lilith.

When he’d first heard of the tau’ri, he’d been glad to know they’d destroyed Ra, and then seemingly vanished.

When they’d turned Apophis’s First Prime, and taken no few undesirable hosts to whatever they deemed safety, he’d been intrigued, and curious about who they were.

His spies had brought him information each time the tau’ri ventured out into the galaxy, a little at a time, painting a picture of an interesting team. The traitor j’affa Teal’c, who provides them more information about the System Lords than they would have without someone who’d had as much power as Teal’c once had possessed. The weak-visioned and soft-hearted one called Danyel Jackson, who had greater strength than his warrior friends, and might possess as much knowledge as Teal’c, if in a different manner. The leader, older and experienced in war, who looks out for everyone he calls his own – which seems to be more than just his team or the tau’ri – is called O’Neill.

And the last of the four, a woman with fair hair and pale eyes, is named Carter. She is a warrior, but she is more than simply that. She is an engineer and a scientist, forever asking questions and creating solutions to the technological problems the tau’ri face. Someone of strength and intelligence, though he doubts she’s without flaws.

But it is not her flaws that he first hears of, nor is it her flaws that leave him trying to push away an old and worn grief. Memories of a fierce smile and flashing eyes, standing at his side when he’d been little more than a youth still in the shadow of goa’uld with more power and skill. A woman who he had called his queen, though neither of them had the power for it, and who’d done as much as he to create plans that would bring them power.

She had died too far from a sarcophagus to be saved, bleeding out from a wound that had been meant for him. Laughing and telling him to leave, because she would not have him die. The place where she had died has been a crater for centuries, the blast enough to take out the army of their enemy. Never having spawned, never having given him the larvae who would give him control over j’affa.

And now, with the whispers of freedom that spread from Teal’c and the tau’ri, he needs more than control over their lives to keep his j’affa loyal. More than fear. He needs someone for them to rally about, as once an army had rallied around Anat. So he pushes aside the grief for the woman he’d called his queen, and sends his spies to get some of Carter’s blood, or more.

Once he had that sample, he could create that figure he wanted. A girl, a princess who could grow into a queen. His queen – not his wife, as Anat had been, but the woman who could build an empire the tau’ri are already trying to tear apart.

Stargate SG-1: Born a Queen: Never Stop Wanting Home

AO3 | DW

Fandom: Stargate SG-1
AU: Born a Queen
Series: The Travel Collection
Word Count: 682

Characters: Baal, Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Lilith (OC), Sam Carter, Teal’c

She never stops longing for home. For her father, for his stories, for the palace she lived in, for the j’affa who guarded her.

She never stops longing for home, even when she (barely) accepts she’ll never be allowed to see it again. Never stops wanting to see her father’s smirking face again, telling her stories of vanquishing his enemies. To see the rich gardens of the palace, the gleaming armor of the j’affa who guarded her.

The isolated cabin, the lake, the silver-haired warrior who’s been named her new guardian – none of this makes up for everything she’s lost. Some days she misses it with such a fierce ache, she can’t do anything but run as far as she can, kicking and screaming when the warrior catches up to her. Crying herself to sleep, curled around the stuffed toy that is all she has left of her old life.

One day, she’s taken back to the place she’d first arrived on this wretched planet, where others wait. The shol’va Teal’c, the blond woman who she’s been told is biologically her mother – stolen genetics, combined with her father’s, and she doesn’t believe a word of it – and the scholar-warrior who speaks goa’uld with her when he visits. Dan’yel is the only one who’s tried to understand her, but even he can’t take her home.

“Lilith.” Dan’yel smiles, and she skips over to him, ignoring the exasperated sigh from the silver-haired warrior. “I hear you ran away from Jack’s cabin again.”

She shrugs. “I want to go home.” It’s her answer every time someone asks her why she runs away, or why she spends weeks refusing to talk to anyone, or ends up in the hospital because she’s refused to eat. Looking over at the chappa’ai, she smiles hopefully. “Are you taking me home today?”

“Not exactly.” Dan’yel crouches down, the same way the silver-haired warrior does when he’s trying to talk to her. “We’ve been asked to bring you with us for a ceremony. I need you to promise me something, though, before we go.”

“What?” She watches him suspiciously, her smile fading into a frown. The demand of a promise is not a good sign – has never been a good thing.

Dan’yel smiles again, a strange sadness in his eyes, and reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. “Promise me you’ll stay near me or Jack at all times while we’re on the other planet.”

And waste a chance to escape, and return home? She scowls, crossing her arms as she glares at Dan’yel. How can he ask her to do such a thing?

“Why?”

“If you don’t, the general isn’t going to let you go.” Dan’yel holds her gaze, and she wants to scream with rage. So close to a chance to go home, and if she doesn’t make a promise she knows she will regret, she’ll be trapped here forever.

Turning her glare to the bald man in the window, she waits a long moment before she nods once, sharply. “I will stay where you can see me, Dan’yel ibn Jak.” It’s not the concession that any of them really want, but she refuses to stay so close to silver-haired warrior, and if she can explore without them thinking she’s running away, she will take what she can.

It is, though, enough, because the chappa’ai begins to spin, chevrons lighting one by one until the blue that had spelled the end of her idyll shimmers in a circle. The blue that might mean a chance to return home.

“SG-1, you have a go.” The voice is that of the bald general, and she has to restrain herself from bolting for the blue, instead walking docile beside Dan’yel through to another world. It is a hall familiar and welcome, though not home, and there are others waiting for them there.

Among them, a very familiar and welcome face. She ignores the shout of the silver-haired warrior as he comes through, ducking away from the grabbing hands of the woman and the shol’va. Ignoring the men and women in drab who try to stop her, ducking around and through them until she can throw herself into her father’s arms.