Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fantine had stopped expecting the days to improve. The sun could rise, sure. But all it ever did was shine directly on the rot. The streets were lined with people pretending they didn’t see her, or worse: people who saw her and decided it was her fault for being seen.

She coughed, hunched in her threadbare shawl, and pretended the blood in her handkerchief wasn’t red. Maybe it was berry juice. Maybe she was fine. Maybe the priest who spat on her shoe earlier had a bad day, too.

She sat behind the apothecary on Rue du Fil Rouge. It was where they threw out spoiled herbs and things too broken to sell. A perfect fit, then.

At the end of the day, you’re another day colder.

She closed her eyes.

And then a sound: a low whirrrrrk, followed by a gentle clink clank whir. Something was wrong with it, whatever it was. It sounded like God had tried to build a kettle and gotten distracted halfway through.

Fantine opened her eyes and nearly choked again, but not on sickness.

A small red man. No…machine? Being? Something. Round, shiny, maybe four feet tall, wearing what appeared to be a burnt tuxedo. He was glowing faintly. His eyes were impossibly big.

He stopped walking when he saw her. Or maybe because he saw her.

“Bannakaffalatta,” he said, with a sort of proud finality. Like he had just arrived and would not be explaining how.

“…I don’t speak whatever that is,” she said hoarsely.

“It is name,” he said quickly. “Mine.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. “Fantine.”

He bowed. It was stiff and awkward, but clearly rehearsed. “You are… injured?”

She gave him a look that could have collapsed a building. “No,” she said dryly. “I just bleed from my mouth for fun.”

He tilted his head. “Iron deficiency?”

She squinted. “Are you a doctor?”

He paused. Bannakaffalatta gained the look of a shellshocked soldier. “…Doctor…” he whispered to himself and began to rock back and forth. He quickly came back to reality.

“No. But I have read six files on human anatomy. Some of them were pictures. One of them was very wrong.”

Fantine coughed again, because her lungs were petty like that. Bannakaffalatta startled forward and then stopped just short of touching her.

“I do not mean harm,” he said softly.

“I’m not sure I have anything left to harm,” she replied.

Another pause.

Then:

“You look,” he said carefully, “like someone who has not been told they are miraculous in a very long time.”

She blinked. Then laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh. It was the kind of laugh that makes children nervous.

“And you look like someone who fell out of a toyshop mid-explosion.”

“Yes,” he said proudly.

She didn’t ask what he was. She didn’t want to know, not really. In 1818, strange things happened sometimes. People went mad. Wives heard voices. Whole villages claimed the moon fell in love with them. If this was madness, at least it was novel.

She reached for the chain around her neck before remembering she'd pawned it. Cosette’s last letter was folded inside her boot. Unopened. She couldn’t afford the pain just now.

He reached out a hand. A red chrome hand, clunky and precise.

She stared at it. “What are you doing?”

“Offering help,” he said. “Or companionship. Or silence. Whatever is least offensive.”

She looked at him, this little red man in the middle of her grave-shaped life, and she thought not What is happening but Why does this feel familiar.

It was like being handed a flower by a child. Or like hearing someone hum a lullaby you didn’t realize you missed.

“I’m not nice,” she warned.

“Neither is the world,” he said, still holding out his hand. “But you are still here.”

She took it.

It was cold.

It was steady.

And somewhere, maybe in her head, maybe not, she heard a distant voice. Valjean’s voice, Cosette’s laughter, even the hiss of the letter she never read saying:

The sky was gray and heavy like it was trying to apologize for something Fantine wrapped her shawl tighter around her thin shoulders as she walked the cobblestone streets Bannakaffalatta waddled beside her the little red man who definitely did not belong in 1818 France but here he was anyway glowing faintly like a sad Christmas decoration nobody wanted

She did not know what was worse the cold biting at her skin or the way the world treated her like she was already dead The apothecary’s trash heap was better company but it had no words and Bannakaffalatta spoke too much sometimes and sometimes too little and always weird

“Do you want to see the ship” Bannakaffalatta asked suddenly his voice all excited like a child who just found out ice cream exists

Fantine stopped confused “The ship…What ship?”

“The Titanic. It is a ship in the future A terrible ship I was there once. Not the actual titanic tho I wouldn’t get on that boat, I’ve seen the movie. It was modeled after the original titanic.”

Fantine blinked “that makes sense. But the future? You mean like not now”

“Yes But it was not so future then. It was like a bad dream dressed as a ship”

Fantine laughed a little. A sound that made her chest hurt, but also reminded her she was still alive “Sounds like my kind of place”

“Would you like to come It is a long voyage”

She looked at him little red glowing guy who reads bad anatomy files and probably belongs nowhere but here he was offering her an adventure maybe a chance to be something other than a ghost in the streets

“I don’t have much left to lose” she said finally

Bannakaffalatta’s eyes - those impossibly big eyes - glowed a little brighter.

They set off strange companions crossing the city to a harbor she never thought she’d see again Fantine’s memories tangled in her mind like the song On My Own alone but this time she wasn’t alone

The ship was not grand It was a hunk of rust and wood that looked like it had been punched by every storm that ever mattered She thought of I Dreamed a Dream and the bitterness in her chest Life was cruel but maybe here with this glowing weird man it could get different

Bannakaffalatta climbed aboard first his red boots clinking on the deck “We are boarded by ghosts and dreams” he said voice serious

Fantine shivered but stepped up after him The deck creaked like it remembered better days

A figure appeared from the shadows none other than James Wilson who looked completely out of place in 1818 but perfect in his melancholy and coffee-stained coat

“Ah” Wilson said “I see you brought a companion”

Fantine blinked “Who are you”

“James Wilson” he said “And I too am just trying to keep my head above water. Funny how the waters of time don’t care who you are. There’s no Vicodin to destroy my lover here. I have a seldom felt sense of safety here.”

Bannakaffalatta beeped softly “I am glad to meet you James Wilson”

Wilson smiled faintly “You, as well red man. I too deal in things that don’t quite fit. I’m an oncologist.”

Fantine thought she could hear Stars playing somewhere in the background. Maybe just in her head. She folded her arms

“This ship” Wilson said “Is sailing toward something Redemption Damnation Who knows”

“Sounds like Les Mis” Fantine said

“Exactly” Wilson said

They moved deeper into the ship finding rooms filled with broken promises and whispered hopes The air smelled of salt and old dreams

Suddenly from a hidden corner came a soft voice , haunting and familiar.

Julien Baker appeared, guitar slung awkwardly on her back, eyes wide but steady.

“I heard there was a party” she said, “And some people needed a song.”

Fantine laughed a real laugh this time “You’re full of surprises”

Julien strummed a chord. The notes floated like a ghost melody.

“Sometimes” Julien said “You just have to sing through the pain Even if no one listens”

Fantine felt tears sting her eyes but she didn’t wipe them away. She only wished that there were some Julien Baker songs in Les Mis, because “Sprained Ankle” is literally so her core.

Because maybe just maybe this voyage was more than a journey on a ship.

Maybe it was the start of something that didn’t end in sorrow…

Bannakaffalatta’s eyes blinked their bright hopeful glow.

And the ship sailed on.

Chapter Text

The shared cabin of the Tenth Doctor and Wilfred Mott was a cluttered mix of advanced technology and personal trinkets, reflecting the eclectic lives of its occupants. The room was small, with a single porthole offering a view of the vast, star-studded expanse outside. The air was thick with anticipation and a hint of something more primal, a tension that had been building between the two men for what felt like an eternity.

Wilfred, his eyes gleaming with a hunger that belied his years, watched the Doctor tinker with a small device on his desk. The Doctor's fingers danced over the controls, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was oblivious to the older man's intense gaze, lost in the intricate workings of his invention.

"Doctor," Wilfred began, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sent a shiver down the Doctor's spine. "I've been thinking."

The Doctor looked up, his eyes meeting Wilfred's fierce stare. "Oh, yes? About what?"

Wilfred took a step closer, his presence dominating the room. "About us. About this journey we're on. And about something I've been wanting to do."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips. "Is that so? And what might that be?"

Wilfred leaned in, his voice a mere whisper, but laden with intent. "I want to fuck you, Doctor. Right here, right now. And I want you to feel every inch of me."

The Doctor's eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't back away. Instead, he felt a rush of excitement, a thrill that coursed through his veins. "Well, that's direct," he replied, his voice steady despite the flutter in his chest. "And what makes you think I'm interested in that?"

Wilfred's response was a wicked grin, a promise of pleasure and pain. "Because I know you, Doctor. I know what you need. And I know you want this as much as I do."

The Doctor nodded, his mind racing with the implications. "Alright, then. Let's make this interesting."

He turned to face Wilfred fully, his eyes locked onto the older man's. Wilfred's hands reached out, gripping the Doctor's hips with a firm, possessive touch. The Doctor could feel the strength in those hands, the promise of what was to come. Wilfred's thumbs traced small circles on the Doctor's hips, a teasing, tantalizing motion that sent waves of anticipation through him. The Doctor's breath hitched as Wilfred's hands moved lower, cupping his ass and pulling him closer. He could feel the hardness pressing against his thigh, a clear indication of Wilfred's arousal. And it was massive.

"You're playing with fire, old man," the Doctor murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

Wilfred's response was a low growl, a sound that vibrated through the Doctor's body, settling in his core. "I know what I'm doing, Doctor. Trust me."

The Doctor's eyes fluttered closed as Wilfred's lips captured his in a searing kiss. It was a kiss that demanded submission, that promised pleasure beyond imagination. The Doctor's hands gripped Wilfred's shoulders, holding on for dear life as the older man explored his mouth with a fervor that left him breathless.

When they finally broke apart, the Doctor's lips were swollen, his chest heaving with exertion. Wilfred's eyes were dark with desire, his breath ragged. "Ready for the main event, Doctor?" he asked, a wicked smile playing on his lips.

The Doctor nodded, his voice steadier than he felt. "Let's do this."

Wilfred's hands moved with purpose, undressing the Doctor with efficient, practiced movements. The Doctor's clothes fell to the floor, forgotten, as Wilfred's eyes roamed over his body, taking in every inch of exposed skin. The Doctor could feel the heat of Wilfred's gaze, a physical touch that left him burning with need.

Wilfred's fingers traced the line of the Doctor's spine, sending shivers of pleasure down his back. He leaned in, his breath hot on the Doctor's ear. "Bend over the desk, Doctor. Let me see that gorgeous ass of yours."

The Doctor complied, his heart pounding in his chest as he braced himself against the cool surface of the desk. He could feel Wilfred's eyes on him, could hear the older man's sharp intake of breath as he took in the sight before him.

"Fuck, Doctor," Wilfred murmured, his voice thick with desire. "You're a vision."

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder, a smirk playing on his lips. "Less talking, more doing, old man."

Wilfred chuckled, a sound that sent a thrill of anticipation through the Doctor. He watched as Wilfred prepared himself, the sight of the older man's strong, capable hands moving with purpose. Wilfred's cock was massive, thick and hard, a sight that sent a mix of fear and excitement through the Doctor.

When Wilfred finally positioned himself, the Doctor could feel the cool metal of the desk pressing against his skin, a stark contrast to the heat of Wilfred's body. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as Wilfred's hands gripped his hips once more.

"Ready, Doctor?" Wilfred asked, his voice a low growl.

The Doctor nodded, his voice barely a whisper. "Ready."

Wilfred pushed forward, the sensation of fullness unlike anything the Doctor had ever experienced. He gasped, his fingers digging into the desk as he struggled to adjust to the invasion. Wilfred's cock was immense, stretching him in a way that was almost painful, but incredibly pleasurable. Wilfred's hands were gentle but firm, guiding him, coaxing him to relax and accept the intrusion.

"That's it, Doctor," Wilfred murmured, his voice a soothing balm to the Doctor's frayed nerves. "Just relax and feel."

The Doctor took a deep breath, forcing his body to comply. As he did, a wave of pleasure unlike anything he had ever known washed over him. He moaned, a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

Wilfred began to move, his hips thrusting in a steady, rhythmic motion that sent the Doctor spiraling into a world of pure sensation. The desk creaked beneath them, a symphony of sound that accompanied the wet, slapping noise of their bodies coming together. The Doctor could feel every vein, every ridge of Wilfred's cock as it moved inside him, hitting spots that sent jolts of pleasure coursing through his body.

The Doctor's own cock was rock hard, leaking pre-cum onto the desk. He reached down, his hand wrapping around his length, stroking in time with Wilfred's movements. The dual sensation of being filled and pleasuring himself was overwhelming, sending him into a frenzy of ecstasy.

Their breathing grew ragged, their bodies slick with sweat as they moved together in a dance as old as time itself. The Doctor could feel the pressure building, the coil of tension in his core tightening with each thrust. His strokes on his own cock matched the rhythm of Wilfred's movements, driving him closer and closer to the edge.

"Wilfred," he gasped, his voice a plea. "I'm close. So close."

Wilfred's response was a low growl, a sound that sent the Doctor careening over the edge. "Come for me, Doctor. Let me feel you come undone."

The Doctor cried out, his body convulsing as waves of pleasure washed over him. His cock pulsed in his hand, spraying his release onto the desk in thick, white streams. The sensation of his own orgasm combined with the feeling of Wilfred's cock moving inside him sent him into a state of pure bliss.

Behind him, Wilfred's movements grew erratic, his grip on the Doctor's hips tightening as he chased his own release. With a final, powerful thrust, Wilfred buried himself deep inside the Doctor, letting out a primal roar as he found his climax. The Doctor could feel the hot, pulsing spurt of Wilfred's release, filling him completely.

They stayed like that for a moment, their bodies entwined, their breathing ragged and uneven. The Doctor could feel Wilfred's heart pounding against his back, could feel the older man's breath hot on his skin. The sensation of being filled with Wilfred's seed, of feeling his cock soften inside him, was incredibly intimate, a connection unlike any other.

Finally, Wilfred pulled away, a soft, satisfied smile playing on his lips. He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to the Doctor's shoulder. "Well, Doctor," he said, his voice a low rumble. "That was an adventure."

The Doctor turned to face him, a matching smile on his own lips, his body still trembling with the aftermath of their encounter. "Indeed, it was, Wilfred. Indeed, it was." He reached up, cupping Wilfred's cheek, feeling the rough stubble against his palm. "You were... incredible."

Wilfred's eyes softened, and he leaned into the touch, a rare moment of vulnerability passing between them. "So were you, Doctor. So were you."

Meanwhile, Fantine woke up to the sound of someone violently playing the triangle. She sat bolt upright in her creaky cot aboard the fake Titanic, eyes wild, shawl askew, clutching at her chest like the consumption had gone jazz.

It was not a triangle.

It was Bannakaffalatta pressing buttons on what appeared to be an interdimensional kazoo.

“We must leave now,” he said, unbothered.

“What? why?” she coughed. “We just got here. Julien is writing a song about boats and despair. I thought we were… bonding.”

“I made a mistake,” he said cheerily. “This ship is currently overlapping with a collapsing paradox inside the French Revolution and also Wilfred Mott is pegging the Doctor in the captain’s quarters. We must disembark.”

Fantine blinked. “That sentence meant progressively less the longer it went on.”

“I’ll show you.”

He yanked a curtain aside. Behind it: the Tenth Doctor, fully clothed but looking like his soul had been through something, shirt untucked, suspenders uneven. Wilfred Mott stood behind him, calm, sipping tea with the raw power of someone who has seen the end of the world and decided to knit through it.

Fantine opened her mouth.

“Don’t,” said the Doctor, without turning.

Wilf gave a dignified nod. “Privacy, please.”

Bannakaffalatta slammed the curtain shut.

“We go,” he said again, pressing the kazoo like it was a button to a better world.

Everything turned inside out.

They landed face-first in a pile of hay that smelled like goat secrets and dying revolution.

Fantine groaned. Bannakaffalatta beeped in distress.

James Wilson landed five feet to the left in a perfect flop, immediately checking his pockets for ibuprofen and emotional repression.

Julien Baker somehow landed standing up, guitar still strapped to her like a cross between a saint and a cursed open mic act.

“What… year is it?” Wilson asked, blinking into the gray Paris sky.

“Les Mis year,” Fantine said hoarsely.

“Fantine, I’ve been thinking.” Began Bannakaffalatta, “Maybe you don’t have a Les mis death disease like tuberculosis or pneumonia, maybe you have lupus.”

An irritated James Wilson looked up sharply. “It’s never lupus, Banna.”

“IT IS BANNAKAFFALATTA. MY NAME IS NOT “Banna” IT IS BANNAKAFFALATTA. DON’T FUCKING CALL ME “BANNA” or LATTA or ANY OTHER SHORT FORM OF MY NAME. BANNAKAFFALATTA!!!!” said Bannakaffalatta calmly.

“Ok girl boss I’m gonna go touch myself to pictures of cancer cells”, James Wilson replied.

A horse trotted past dragging a wheelbarrow full of broken dreams and literal cabbage.

Julien plucked a single chord that made the clouds look guilty.

Bannakaffalatta blinked. “This timeline is very… miserable.”

“It’s pronounced miser-AB” Fantine muttered.

Suddenly, they were interrupted by the loudest possible noise a man in moral turmoil can make.

“WHO AM I? WHO AM I? I’M JEAN VALJEAN!”

Valjean crashed into the street carrying a stolen loaf of bread in one hand and the burden of atonement in the other.

He skidded to a stop when he saw them.

“Fantine?” he gasped.

Fantine, covered in hay and cosmic trauma, waved. “Hey, Jean. I’m traveling with a robot and a bunch of people from the future now. You?”

Valjean stared, twitching like a man who had heard God cough in the next room.

“I’m… being chased by Javert.”

“Again?” Wilson said, sitting up. “Isn’t that just your Tuesday?”

From the fog emerged Inspector Javert, intense and glowering, looking like a coat rack that had committed to the bit.

He stopped upon seeing the group.

“What in the name of law and exposition-”

“Hi,” said Julien, strumming a B minor so mournful it made Javert take a full step back.

Bannakaffalatta stepped forward, blinking politely. “We are tourists.”

Javert, already tired, turned to Valjean. “Is this one of your crimes.”

Valjean shrugged. “At this point, I genuinely don’t know.”

And at this time, the ship randomly started to disappear. The captain called for an evacuation.

They fled again because that's what people do in Les Mis

Julien ducked into a crumbling church and muttered something about acoustics. Wilson picked up a shovel for no reason. Fantine, still coughing, kicked over a bread cart and screamed “VIVE LA RUE.” Revolution stuff.

And Bannakaffalatta?

He paused, turned to the sky, and whispered:

“I would like to find purpose. And perhaps a hat.”

They collapsed in Thenardier’s Inn, the kind of inn where even the ghosts have drinking problems.

Fantine lay beside the hearth, which was not on, because life was still bad.

“You alright?” Wilson asked, bandaging her arm with a torn-up love letter from Cosette’s unread correspondence.

“I’m never alright,” she said, “but sometimes I pretend real good.”

Julien sat nearby, softly singing.

Bannakaffalatta curled up beside Fantine like a space heater made of empathy.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered.

Fantine blinked.

“What about it?”

He touched her hand gently.

“Tomorrow we fight for you.”

Fantine began to sing “Tomorrow we'll discover what our God in Heaven has in store”
All the others joined her. “One more dawn
One more day
One day more”

Chapter Text

Paris at night had a way of pretending it was peaceful. The two hooligans sat on the roof of Thénardier’s inn. The roofs stretched long and low, like they’d grown tired of holding the city up. Fantine sat with her shawl drawn tight, coughing into the crook of her arm. Bannakaffalatta sat beside her, legs barely hanging over the edge.

He wasn’t glowing much anymore.

They hadn’t spoken since the ship disappeared. Maybe they were pretending that didn’t happen, or maybe it wasn’t the strangest part of her week.

Above them, the sky was flat and gray. Below, the streetlamps burned like dying stars.

Fantine broke the silence first. “I used to dream about living in a house with a roof like this. Warm, dry, quiet. I'd imagine I was safe.”

Bannakaffalatta didn’t respond right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “I dream of things too. But not sleep dreams. Just... wants. They show up like pictures, and they do not go away.”

“What do you want?” she asked, not sure why she cared.

He took a long time before answering. “To be known. And to not be a mistake.”

Fantine turned to look at him. The absurdity of the situation flickered, then faded. He wasn’t ridiculous. He was small, and he was real.

“I know that feeling,” she said. “You walk through the world, and all anyone sees is what’s wrong with you. And eventually, you start seeing it too.”

He turned his big dark eyes to her. “I do not think there is anything wrong with you.”

She gave a tired smile. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough,” he said. “You get up every day. You keep going. Even when you shouldn’t have to.”

Her throat tightened. “That’s not special. That’s survival.”

“It is both,” he said. “And it’s more than most.”

The silence returned, but it was softer now. Like they were sharing it.

Finally, she spoke again. “Whatever happens next, you don’t have to stay. I’ve been left before. I can handle it.”

Bannakaffalatta tilted his head. “I don’t want to leave.”

She looked down at her hands. “Why?”

He hesitated, searching for the right words. “Because when I am near you, I feel... anchored. Like time isn’t pulling me in every direction. Like I’m not just something strange.”

Fantine blinked hard. Her chest ached, and not just from sickness.

“You don’t have to fix me,” she said.

“I don’t want to,” he replied. “I just want to sit here. Until the morning comes.”

So they did.

Two figures on a rooftop in a city that never stopped breaking people. For a moment, neither of them was broken.

And when the violin started playing off-key in the apartment below, Fantine laughed. For real this time.

Bannakaffalatta’s eyes are large, with no discernible pupils, giving him an intense, almost hypnotic gaze. He reaches out a hand, his fingers long and delicate, and gently cups Fantine's face. His touch is cool and dry, sending a shiver down her spine.

"You are beautiful, Fantine," he says, his voice a low, melodic hum that seems to resonate within her chest. "I have never seen a human so full of life and passion."

Fantine's hands tremble as she reaches out to touch him, her fingers gliding over the bumpy, cool surface of his skin. She can feel the subtle shift of muscles beneath, a reminder that despite his otherworldly appearance, he is very much alive. Very much a sentient being. Very much a male. She can feel his alien dick, hard and throbbing, pressing against her thigh. It's longer and thinner than a human's, with a ridged texture that sends a thrill of curiosity and desire through her.

Bannakaffalatta's hands begin to explore her body, his touch both firm and delicate. He traces the curve of her neck, the swell of her breasts, the arch of her spine, as if committing every inch of her to memory. His fingers leave a trail of cool, tingling sensation that makes her arch her back and press against him. He leans down, his lips pressing against hers in a kiss that is both familiar and alien. His tongue, long and forked, explores her mouth, tasting and teasing, sending shocks of pleasure through her body.

Fantine gasps, her head falling back as she surrenders to the onslaught of sensations. She can still feel his alien cock, hard and throbbing, pressing against her thigh. But this time, it’s escaped Bannakaffalatta’s pants. She reaches down, her hand wrapping around its length, and is rewarded with a low, guttural moan from Bannakaffalatta. His dick pulses in her hand, a bead of clear, cool fluid leaking from its tip. She spreads it around, her touch tentative at first, then more confident as she explores the ridges and contours of his alien flesh.

Bannakaffalatta's breathing grows ragged, his hands moving with increased urgency as he explores every inch of her body.

She pushes him gently, urging him to sit on the edge of the table. He complies, his eyes never leaving hers, a hungry expression on his face. She drops to her knees, her hands running up his thighs, feeling the cool, smooth skin beneath her fingers. She can feel his member, hard and throbbing, pressing against her palm, and she wraps her hand around its length, her fingers not quite meeting.

"Is this what you want, Bannakaffalatta?" she asks, her voice a low purr. "Do you want me to take you in my mouth, to taste you, to please you?"

He groans, his head falling back, his eyes fluttering closed. "Yes," he hisses. "I want that, and so much more."

She leans in, her tongue flicking out, tasting the tip of his member, the ridges and contours sending shivers of pleasure through both of them. She takes him in her mouth, her lips stretching to accommodate his size, her tongue swirling and exploring, tasting and teasing. She can feel his pulse, his throbbing need, his desperation for release.

Bannakaffalatta's hands find her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands, guiding her movements, urging her on. "That's it," he groans. "Take me deeper. Let me feel your throat, your heat, your humanity."

Fantine obliges, taking him deeper, her muscles relaxing, her gag reflex fading as she focuses on pleasing him. She can feel his member pulsing in her mouth, the spike protrusions caressing her tongue, her cheeks, her lips, sending waves of pleasure coursing through her body. She reaches between his legs, her fingers gently massaging his sac, feeling its weight, its fullness, its readiness.

"Fantine," he groans, his voice a low, guttural sound. "You are incredible. Your mouth, your touch, your enthusiasm. It's all so human, so passionate, so perfect."

She can feel his body tensing, his member throbbing, his release building. She increases her pace, her hand and mouth working in tandem, her fingers digging into his thighs, urging him on. She wants to taste him, to feel him come undone in her mouth, to swallow his essence, his pleasure, his very being.

Just as he's about to reach his climax, he pulls away, his member slipping from her lips with a pop. He looks down at her, his eyes glowing with a feral hunger, a wicked smile playing on his lips. "As much as I would love to finish in your mouth, I have other plans for you, my greedy girl."

Bannakaffalatta lifts Fantine effortlessly, her legs wrapping around his waist as he presses her against the wall. She can feel the cool, smooth surface against her back, a stark contrast to the heat building between her thighs. He promptly lifts up Fantine’s skirt, and hungrily enters her with such force, that Fantine shrieks. He starts to move, his hips thrusting in a slow, deliberate rhythm, each movement designed to maximize their pleasure. He leans down, his lips capturing hers in a deep, passionate kiss, his tongue claiming her mouth.

"You taste like stars and sin, Fantine," he murmurs against her lips, his voice a low, resonant hum that vibrates through her chest. "I could devour you forever."

Fantine moans, her hips bucking against him, urging him deeper. "More," she begs. "I need more."

He obliges, his thrusts becoming more powerful, more urgent. The ridges of his member create a friction that sends sparks of pleasure coursing through her veins. She can feel every inch of his textured dick, caressing and stimulating every sensitive spot. "You feel incredible," she gasps. "So full, so complete."

Bannakaffalatta pulls out, leaving her feeling empty and wanting. He spins her around, bending her over a nearby table, her breasts pressing against the cool wood. He enters her from behind, his hands gripping her hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. He starts to move, his thrusts deep and powerful, each one eliciting a moan of pleasure from deep within her throat.

"Is this what you wanted, Fantine?" he growls, his voice a low, feral sound. "To be taken, to be filled, to be claimed by an alien?"

"Yes," she cries out, her body shaking with the force of her need. "More. Harder. Faster."

He complies, his body moving with a feral intensity, his member pulsing and throbbing inside her. He leans over her, his chest pressing against her back, his lips at her ear. "I want to taste you, Fantine," he murmurs. "I want to taste your humanity, your passion."

He pulls out, and before she can protest, he lifts her onto the table, laying her back, and buries his face between her thighs. His very very long tongue explores her folds, tasting, teasing, sending jolts of pleasure through her body. He sucks on her clit, his tongue flicking and swirling, his hands gripping her thighs, holding her in place as she bucks and writhes against his mouth.

"Oh god," she moans, her hands fisting in his hair, urging him on. "Yes. Right there. Don't stop."

He doesn't, his tongue and lips working their magic, bringing her to the brink of orgasm. Just as she's about to fall over the edge, he pulls away, leaving her gasping and wanting.

"Please," she begs, her body trembling with need. "I need to come. I need you inside me."

He smiles, a slow, sensual curve of his lips, and positions himself at her entrance once more. "As you wish, my human," he murmurs, and thrusts into her, filling her completely.

He starts to move, his hips thrusting in a fast, urgent rhythm, his body slapping against hers, the sound of their lovemaking filling the room. He leans down, his lips capturing hers in a deep, passionate kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth, tasting and teasing.

Fantine wraps her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, holding him close, urging him deeper. She can feel her orgasm building, a coiled spring of pleasure ready to explode. "I'm close," she gasps out, her voice hoarse, her body trembling. "So close."

Bannakaffalatta increases his pace, his body moving with a feral intensity, his member pulsing and throbbing inside her, the spike protrusions caressing and stimulating every sensitive spot. "Come for me, Fantine," he growls. "Let me feel your release, your humanity, your essence."

He reaches between them, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing and circling, sending her spiraling over the edge. Her orgasm crashes over her like a tidal wave, her body convulsing, her inner muscles clenching and releasing around him, milking his own release from his body. He throws his head back, a low, guttural roar escaping his lips as he finds his pleasure, his seed filling her, marking her as his in a way that is primal and undeniable.

But he doesn't stop there. He pulls out, and before she can protest, he lifts her up, her back against the wall, and impales her on his member once more. He starts to move, his hips thrusting in a slow, deliberate rhythm, drawing out her pleasure, his lips capturing hers in a deep, passionate kiss.

As Bannakaffalatta and Fantine catch their breath, their bodies still tingling from their intense encounter, he pulls her close, his lips capturing hers in a deep, passionate kiss. Their tongues dance together, exploring, tasting, savoring the moment. When they finally pull away, their breaths are ragged, and their hearts pound in sync.

Bannakaffalatta looks into her eyes, a mischievous glint sparkling in his. "You greedy girl," he teases, a slow, sensual smile spreading across his face. "Always wanting more."

Fantine raises an eyebrow, a playful smirk playing on her lips. "Oh yeah?" she challenges, her voice husky with desire. "Well, maybe I just can't get enough of you."

Bannakaffalatta, his body still throbbing with desire, positions himself behind Fantine, his cock hard and ready. He takes a moment to admire the curve of her back, the softness of her skin, the way her body responds to his touch. He can feel the cool, smooth touch of her skin against his, sending shivers of pleasure down his spine, a sensation both familiar and alien to him. He spits on his hand, using the saliva to lubricate her ass and his cock. He positions the head of his cock at her tight little hole, and he can feel the anticipation building, the urgency of his need.

"Relax, Fantine," he murmurs, his voice a low, resonant hum. "Let me in. Let me fill you completely."

He pushes forward, inch by inch, feeling her tight ass give way to his invasion. The sensation is intense, a pleasure so profound it's almost painful. He can feel every ridge, every contour of his cock as it slides into her, the suction-cup-like protrusions sending waves of pleasure coursing through his veins. He takes his time, letting her adjust to his size, savoring the feeling of being inside her in this new, intimate way.

"Oh my god," Fantine moans, her voice hoarse with desire, and the sound sends a jolt of excitement through him. He starts to move, his hips thrusting in a slow, deliberate rhythm, and he can feel her body responding, her muscles clenching and releasing around him, drawing him in deeper.

The sensation of being inside her ass is unlike anything he has ever experienced. It's tighter, more intense, and it sends his pleasure soaring. He can feel her body tensing, her breath hitching, her orgasm building, and it urges him on, his thrusts becoming more powerful, more urgent.

"That's it, Fantine," he growls, his voice a low, feral sound. "Take me deeper. Let me feel your ass. God I love to feel you enveloping me."

He reaches around, his fingers finding her clit, and he can feel her body tensing.

Bannakaffalatta feels Fantine’s inner muscles clenching and releasing around him, he feels a rush of satisfaction, of power, of pleasure. His own release builds, a coiled spring ready to explode, and with a final, powerful thrust, he lets go, his cock pulsing as he fills her ass with his seed, marking her as his.

As Bannakaffalatta fills her ass with his hot, pulsing seed, Fantine's body responds with a mix of pleasure and a sense of being utterly claimed. The initial sensation of his release is warm and intense, a contrast to the cool, smooth feel of his skin. She can feel every pulse, every spurt, as he marks her from the inside, and it sends shivers of primal satisfaction through her.

"Oh god," she moans, her voice a low, guttural sound she barely recognizes. The feeling of being filled so completely, so intimately, is unlike anything she's ever experienced. There's a slight burn, a stretch, but it's overshadowed by the overwhelming pleasure that courses through her veins.

He pulls out slowly, and she can feel the loss of him, the emptiness that follows his withdrawal. Her body aches for more, for his touch, his fill, his completion. The unique sensations his cock provided. The suction, the Ridges all leave her craving more, her body throbbing with need.

When he turns her around and lifts her, positioning her to straddle him with her back against the wall, she feels a rush of excitement and vulnerability. Being held by him, supported by his strength, sends a thrill through her. As he enters her pussy, she feels a rush of pleasure, a sense of wholeness as he fills her once again. His cock, still hard and throbbing, pulses inside her, sending waves of pleasure through her body.

"Oh god, you feel amazing," she whispers, her voice hoarse with desire. The ridges of his cock create a friction that sends sparks of pleasure coursing through her veins. The spike protrusions are driving her wild, each one moving independently, exploring and stimulating every sensitive spot inside her.

Her body responds to his with a fervor she has never experienced. Her inner muscles clench and release around him, trying to draw him in deeper, to hold him closer. She can feel her own wetness, her body's response to his invasion, and it only serves to heighten her arousal. The combination of his cool, smooth skin and his hard, throbbing cock is intoxicating, a contrast that sends her senses into overdrive.

As he starts to move, his hips thrusting in a slow, deliberate rhythm, she can feel every inch of him, the unique contours and ridges of his alien cock creating sensations she never knew possible. The spike like protrusions add an extra layer of pleasure, each one creating a unique, intense feeling as they move independently, exploring and stimulating her most sensitive spots.

"More," she begs, her voice hoarse with need. "I need more. I need to feel you everywhere."

He obliges, his pace increasing, his thrusts becoming more powerful, more urgent. The room fills with the sound of their lovemaking, the slap of flesh against flesh, their ragged breaths, their moans of pleasure. She can feel her orgasm building, a coiled spring of pleasure ready to explode.

"I'm close," she gasps out, her voice hoarse, her body trembling. "So close."

He reaches between them, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing and circling, sending her spiraling towards her climax. The sensation of his fingers on her sensitive nub, combined with the feeling of his cock filling her, is overwhelming. She can feel her body tensing, her muscles coiling, her breath hitching as she approaches the precipice of pleasure.

"Come for me, Fantine," he growls, his voice a low, feral sound that sends a jolt of excitement through her. "Let me feel your release, your humanity, your essence."

And she does, her orgasm crashing over her like a tidal wave, her body convulsing, her inner muscles clenching and releasing around him, milking his own release from his body. She cries out, his name a scream on her lips, her body shaking, her vision blurring as wave after wave of ecstasy washes over her. It's a pleasure so intense it's almost painful, a sensation so overwhelming it borders on spiritual.

As they come down from their high, their breathing slowly returning to normal, Bannakaffalatta lowers Fantine to the ground, his hands gently releasing their hold on her. He pulls her into his embrace, his body still glowing softly as he holds her close, their hearts beating in sync.

"That was... beyond words," Fantine whispers, her voice hoarse with emotion. "I've never felt anything like that. You've marked me, Bannakaffalatta. I am yours."

Bannakaffalatta smiles, his eyes shining with satisfaction and affection. "And you have marked me, Fantine. You are my human, my lover, my essence. Forever."

And as they stand there, wrapped in each other's arms, the theater around them fading into insignificance, they know that this encounter has forever changed them, leaving them forever marked by the other's touch, their souls intertwined in a bond that transcends time and space.

Meanwhile, inside the inn…

“YOU AREN’T EVEN A REAL DOCTOR!” the Tenth Doctor shouted, gesturing with the force of someone who has seen the universe and is still very bad at conflict resolution.

James Wilson scoffed, casually sipping from a chipped mug labeled “#1 Complicated Man”.

“I went to Princeton,” Wilson said.

“I went to THE END OF TIME.”

“You don’t even have a last name.”

“I don’t need one. I’m the Doctor.”

“Of what? Vague vibes and sexual tension?”

The Doctor twitched. “I’ve literally saved planets.”

“I’ve literally saved House from choking on a Vicodin bottle. Twice.”

Julien Baker, sitting nearby like a melancholy gargoyle, muttered, “Can you two please lower your egos, I’m trying to tune my despair.”

Back upstairs…

Fantine and Bannakaffalatta lay side by side on the roof, staring at a sky that didn’t promise anything.

“Why are you still here?” she whispered.

“Because,” he said, voice like soft static, “you called me ‘miraculous.’ Even if it was a joke. Even if it was bitter. You saw me.”

Fantine swallowed hard. “I don’t know how to love someone who isn’t going to leave.”

Bannakaffalatta beeped sadly. “I am a time traveler. I always leave. But I always remember.”

Fantine turned to him. “And if I told you I’m dying?”

He paused.

Then: “Then I will make time stop.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s not how this works.”

He touched her hand.

“Then I will hold it until it does.”

Downstairs.

Julien broke the awkward silence by beginning to strum a version of Bring Him Home but it was in a weird open tuning and also somehow emo-core. Wilson cried and pretended it was allergies.

The Doctor stared into the fire, visibly distressed.

“Something’s… shifting. Time is buckling.”

“Because of us?” Wilson asked.

“No,” said the Doctor. “Because two souls who were never meant to meet… have begun to orbit each other.”

“Fantine and the red guy?” Wilson blinked.

“Yes. Love is powerful. But this?” He stood up, pacing. “This is catastrophic.”

Back on the roof.

Fantine leaned against Bannakaffalatta’s shoulder. He was warm. He had adjusted his internal systems for her.

“You make me want to live again,” she whispered.

“You make me want to dream,” he replied.

Below them, the Doctor ran out the front door screaming, “TIME IS FRACTURING, SOMEONE’S HEART IS TOO LOUD”

Wilson followed, grumbling, “Get a degree in coping mechanisms, Doctor.”

Julien sighed. “This is why I work alone.”

STAKES REVEALED:

Because Fantine is a fixed point in time, her dying in misery is a canon event.

Her falling in love with Bannakaffalatta…being happy…threatens the timeline.

Every moment she feels joy with him, the world starts to shiver.

Reality begins to crack at the seams.

And somewhere in the stars, a warning pulses in the void:

”LOVE HER AND THE WORLD DIES. LET HER GO AND YOU BREAK.”

Chapter Text

Thénardier’s Inn was breathing again.

Not in a cozy, haunted way.

In a mouth-opening, teeth-rearranging, time-folding-inside-itself way.

The floorboards groaned like they remembered every sin committed on them. The cabbage in the corner had gained sentience. Someone screamed upstairs, but it was just a memory. The soup pot boiled without heat. Javert hadn’t blinked in hours.

And on the rooftop, Fantine coughed up a shard of stained glass.

“Okay,” she said, calmly. “That’s new.”

Bannakaffalatta tilted his head. His chest-light flickered like a dying Christmas ornament. “That was from a cathedral.”

Fantine blinked at the blood-speckled fragment in her palm. “It’s from the future. I think I just spat out the year 2321.”

Downstairs, the Doctor dropped his sonic screwdriver.

“It’s happening.”

James Wilson closed his book mid-sentence. “Time just flinched.”

Wilfred stood still and serious, the air warping around his tea.

Julien Baker played a G chord and it came out a sob. “She’s still singing inside time,” she whispered. “She’s not supposed to be singing.”

The Doctor looked up slowly. “That’s because she was supposed to be dead.”

Outside, the sky split.

No thunder. Just a pop. Like a bubble. Like a breath held too long. And through the crack in the sky:

“Please stay.”
“Favor.”
“Graceland Too.”

The voices were layered. Familiar. Personal.

Cosette’s voice in the walls. Jean Valjean muttering “to love another person…” in reverse. Julien Baker’s lyricism stitched between time threads like a mixtape made by grief itself.

And at the center of it all:

Love her and the world dies. Let her go and you break.
Inside the inn, the candles blew themselves out.

Julien’s guitar string snapped.

The wind screamed.

And then

“What’s up, Greg.”

Danny Gonzalez stepped through the fireplace like it was a PowerPoint transition.

He looked exactly like his YouTube thumbnails. Denim jacket. Smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Aura of subscriber count too powerful to comprehend.

Everyone froze.

The Doctor backed up instinctively. “No. No, no, no. He’s not supposed to be here.”

James Wilson stood slowly. “You said he was a theory.”

Julien Baker took a trembling step forward. “He’s not a theory. He’s the algorithm.”

Danny smiled. “You broke narrative continuity,” he said cheerfully. “So I came to fix it.”

Wilfred dropped his tea.

Julien dropped her tuning fork.

Javert shouted, “I KNEW IT.”

Bannakaffalatta stepped protectively in front of Fantine.

“Who… is Greg?” he whispered.

Danny adjusted his collar. “Greg is everyone. Greg is no one. Greg is the viewer. The reader. The rulebook. And you” he pointed directly at Fantine “violated canon.”

The Doctor began to explain, “Everybody knows Danny is the keeper of the timelines… and if he finds a violated cannon… he-well- he takes care of it.”

Fantine straightened her shawl.

“I didn’t violate canon,” she said. “I survived it.”

Danny took a slow step forward.

“You were supposed to die,” he said softly. “You had a narrative arc. It ended in tragedy. Misery. Musical motifs. Your pain was literary currency.”

“I got better,” Fantine replied. “I fell in love.”

“With an alien,” Danny snapped.

“With someone who saw me,” she snapped back.

The Doctor shoved in front. “Don’t do this.”

Danny glanced at him. “You of all people should understand fixed points. And this…” he gestured at Fantine and Bannakaffalatta “…this is a canonical rupture. It’s echoing into every adaptation. Every timeline.”

Julien’s voice trembled: “You can’t erase them.”

Danny looked at her. “You’re the little gay one. You should know better. Happy pride month by the way… shout out to… the gays….”

The room shifted.

Suddenly, they were all in the rooftop scene again. Even the inn had forgotten its shape. Thénardier was screaming somewhere in the background about losing twelve cabbages to narrative destabilization.

Valjean floated by holding a candle and screaming in C minor.

The sky cracked fully open.

And time spoke:

“Why did you let them leave and make me stay”
“God I wanna go home.”
“Marathon running, my ankles are sprained”

Julien Baker screamed and began playing “Appointments” without touching the strings. Her sad lesbian songs unplayed themselves.

Bannakaffalatta turned to Fantine.

“If you say yes, I’ll run with you,” he whispered. “Even if we’re the only real things left.”

Fantine touched his face. Her hand glowed.

“I’d rather be a paradox with you,” she said, “than a tragedy without you.”

Danny Gonzalez raised his hand.

Reality began to pixelate.

The sky played a vine of a screaming goat backwards. Every Doctor Who Christmas Special merged into one cursed gif.

And in the middle of it all, two people clung to each other;

A French woman with lovely hair, and a half-metal man glowing with hope…and refused to let go.

Chapter Text

The sky tore like fabric. The rooftop groaned. The world exhaled.

They didn’t run, but rather they fell forward into the blue. The Doctor opened the TARDIS door like it was the last page of a book that didn’t end right. Fantine stepped in and forgot how to breathe.

The interior of the TARDIS wasn’t just vast, it was impossible. It wasn’t a room. It wasn’t even a space. It was a feeling. A memory of a cathedral she’d never seen. A heartbeat made out of golden light.

The walls curved inward and outward at once. The console hummed like it was dreaming.

She didn’t speak at first. Her mouth opened. Nothing came.

And then, quietly:

“It’s not bigger on the inside…”

“Yes, it’s bigger on the inside.” Interjected The Doctor “Alright let’s get out of here”

“ALLONS-Y!”

Bannakaffalatta followed, silent. His small frame shook as he crossed the threshold, like the gravity inside had become emotional.

The Doctor didn’t turn from the console after that. He just murmured to himself a lot.

Fantine reached out. She didn’t touch anything. She looked up.

“I died in a hospital,” she said.

Her voice didn’t echo.

Wilfred stepped in last. “And now you’re in a ship made of memory, flying through something that used to be time.”

The doors closed.

The TARDIS moved.

And outside, France collapsed behind them.

Meanwhile, Back in the Burning Year 1832

Thénardier’s inn was gone. The timeline had shuddered once, then folded like a napkin.

But four remained.

Jean Valjean, upright. Stoic. Lethal in the quiet way.

Javert, wild-eyed. Still holding his hat like it could explain anything.

James Wilson, half-drunk and emotionally resigned.

Julien Baker, tuning a guitar that hadn’t existed five seconds ago.

They were alone in a version of history that no longer made sense.

And then, very gently, Valjean said:

“We should enter a polyamorous relationship.”

Everyone looked at him.

“I mean,” Julien said, “yeah.”

“Sure,” said Wilson, too quickly.

Javert blinked once, slowly. “…Law is built on structure.”

Julien strummed an E minor.

So that was that.

The world ended.

And they stayed behind to feel something.

2025. The Beige Office. Somewhere Outside Canon.

The TARDIS landed like a breath held too long.

Everyone tumbled out.

The Doctor opened the doors slowly, as if unsure of what world waited for them.

Beige.

A world built of nothing.

The walls, carpet, ceiling: beige.

No windows.

Just a desk.

A chair.

A single towering nutcracker statue in the corner, six feet tall, with a frozen wooden smile that hinted at knowledge it should not contain.

Above the desk, a flat screen flickered gently.

Just one word.

In white Helvetica:
FAVOR

Fantine stepped out first.

The air here wasn’t dead. It was… still. The way grief is still.

She coughed once. The sound didn’t echo.

Bannakaffalatta followed closely, his metal limbs making no sound on the carpet.

Wilfred muttered, “I hate this.”

The Doctor didn’t answer. His whole body was tight. Unreadable. Like he’d been here before, and it hadn’t gone well.

Fantine walked toward the desk.

And then…

The chair turned.

Danny Gonzalez was sitting there.

He looked like his thumbnails.

Denim jacket.

Smile that didn’t meet his eyes.

A presence that bent light, like the room was trying to pixelate around him.

He sat like a man who had already won.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said calmly.

Then he smiled.

“You,” he said.

Danny tilted his head.

“Yes. Me.”

“The Master,” the Doctor said.

“What’s up, Greg.”

Silence.

Bannakaffalatta moved closer to Fantine, his body tensing as if ready to explode.

The Doctor’s face had gone flat. Old.

Fantine stepped forward. “Why?”

Danny didn’t look at her.

He gestured to the screen above them.

FAVOR

“It’s all about structure,” he said. “Plot. Rhythm. Loss. You were a death scene, Fantine. A tragic wound. A mother martyred by class and coughs. You don’t get to live. That’s not the story.”

Fantine’s voice was quiet. “But I did.”

“And that’s the problem.”

The door behind the desk opened.

And she entered.

Laura.

But not Laura.

Cosette.

Grown.

Perfect.

An influencer of a daughter, her face soft and plastic in the glow of too many filters. Her movements rehearsed. Her voice smooth, flat, pleasant.

“Hi, Mommy,” she said.

Fantine’s knees nearly gave out.

“…Cosette?”

“I’m Laura now.”

“I named you Cosette.”

Danny watched her like a proud curator.

“She doesn’t remember,” he said. “I removed the grief. I streamlined her character. No trauma. No longing. No broken teeth in a factory alley.”

Fantine walked closer.

“I died for her.”

Danny folded his hands on the desk. “And now she sells candles.”

The screen flashed again.
FAVOR

The Doctor stepped forward.

“You’re violating every law of fixed points.”

Danny didn’t look at him.

“I am the law of fixed points. One might even call me the Timelord victorious.”

Wilfred muttered something dark under his breath about algorithms.

Bannakaffalatta’s voice trembled. “Then why are we here?”

Danny finally looked at Fantine.

“To give you an out.”

Silence.

The Nutcracker statue shifted slightly.

Laura/Cosette smiled. “You could go away. Quietly.”

Danny stood.

“You’re a plot hole, Fantine. A smear on the script. You broke canon and built a paradox. You loved someone.”

Fantine held Bannakaffalatta’s hand tighter.

“And he loved me back.”

Danny walked toward her.

“You’re not supposed to be possible.”

Fantine stood her ground. “Then write a new story.”

Behind her, the TARDIS hummed softly.

The screen glitched.

FAVOR
FAV0R
F@VOR
𝔉𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯
Laura blinked. Too fast, like she was buffering.

Something cracked in her smile.

Fantine stepped forward, eyes clear.

“I offer you something else,” she said.

Danny raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“A new narrative,” she said. “Something not made from erasure.”

The Nutcracker’s mouth creaked open.

Dust poured from its jaw.

Laura reached for Fantine then stopped.

Her hand trembled.

“I had a mother,” she whispered. “Didn’t I?”

Silence. She was ignored.

“Don’t be dumb you obviously can’t do that you little French hoe” said Danny/The Master

“You’re late anyway Doctor. I’ve been waiting for you since my Vine days” Master Danny said softly.

“Time always is, in my little kingdom,” the Doctor replied. He didn’t step forward. Their eyes met across the room.

Danny grew defensive (and also a little gayer for the doctor) “You built your life on saving people. On compassion. But the universe doesn’t run on compassion. It runs on power and control. You refuse to take it, and you wander, like some benevolent vagrant.”

The Doctor lustfully replied “Because absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he said, voice quiet. “I want to see the universe, not rule it.”

The Master leaned forward, fingers tapping the desk.

“Why deny the inevitable? We could be together…partners even. We once were classmates…friends…at the academy.”

The doctor softened his voice. “I never forgot... even when you tried to kill me.” He didn't flinch. “We shared a bond. But you chose domination. I chose something else.” replied the Doctor.

This made Master Danny angry. “Look at humanity. POWERLESS. Fragile. They need direction.” He gestured around the office. “They need someone to rewrite their stories. Someone like me.”

“And yet you become them” Says The Doctor, cutting him off. “mind-control, shapeshifting, destroying identity until there’s only you. ‘Breaking news: I’m everyone. And everyone… is me.’ Do you remember that?? That was really fucking weird dude.”

The Master smiled, almost fondly. “Uniformity. Order. Healing the chaos. I didn’t destroy them. I unified them.”

The Doctor’s voice was tight with pain. “No. You erased them.”

He drew a long breath, steadying himself. “You speak of healing. But all you’ve ever done is impose your will. I want to preserve choice, even if it means suffering.”

The Master’s eyes gleamed with a cold certainty. “We both know there are only two roles in the universe: To rule or to serve.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “Choose, Doctor. With me, half the universe is ours to shape.”

“No,” the Doctor replied, his tone clear and unwavering. “I travel to understand. I stay to protect. That’s my promise.” He stepped forward, eyes locked on the Master. “A universe ruled by fear isn’t order. It’s tyranny. And you... you hide it behind smiles.”

The Master’s quiet laugh echoed through the room. “You should know better by now. I gave you your name Doctor. Healer. Fixer. You pretend to serve, but you serve your ego.”

His voice softened, laced with something raw and bitter. “I was homeless. Dying. And you wouldn’t help me.” He paused, staring at the Doctor’s reflection shimmering in the screen before them. “You could have healed me. But you exiled me.”

The Doctor’s voice cracked, burdened with regret. “I tried. And you killed them again and again. You chose destruction over redemption.”

For a moment, they stared at each other. Two sides of the same fractured soul.

Fantine stepped forward, her eyes blazing. “You’re erasing her. All of her.” She gestured toward Laura/Cosette. “My daughter, twisted into a story you can control.”

The Master’s expression hardened. “She’s my design now. Perfect. Unbroken. No wounds.”

Bannakaffalatta’s mechanical limbs hummed softly as he spoke, calm but resolute. “She’s not your property.”

The Doctor’s voice was firm. “Cosette is a person. Not a pixel. Not a product.”

The Master sighed, a faint weariness in his voice. “You’re emotional. Predictable. But I’ll make you a deal. I want compliance and silence. Give me a new story. One without paradox. One that ends.” His eyes flicked toward Fantine. “Convince me you can... storytell me out of this.”

The Doctor’s gaze sharpened. “Or?”

The Master smiled, dark and knowing. “Or reality resets. And you become the plot holes.”

And then they kissed with passion and began to strip each other of their clothes.

Chapter Text

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and zapped them inside the TARDIS. He didn’t know it could do that what figured it was worth a shot. And hey, it worked.

The TARDIS shimmered with an otherworldly energy, the air thick with tension and desire. The Master stood before the Doctor, his eyes gleaming with malice and lust. He unzipped his pants slowly, revealing his already hard cock, thick and throbbing with anticipation.

"On your knees, Doctor," he commanded, his voice a low, seductive purr that sent a shiver down the Doctor's spine.

The Doctor complied, dropping to his knees, his eyes locked on the Master's cock. He leaned in, his tongue flicking out to taste the salty pre-cum that glistened at the tip. The Master's hips jerked, a low growl escaping his throat as the Doctor took him fully into his mouth, his lips stretching wide to accommodate the Master's length and girth.

The Doctor began to move, his head bobbing up and down, his lips and tongue working in tandem to pleasure the Master. He could feel the Master's hands tangling in his hair, guiding his movements, setting a slow, torturous pace. The Master's moans filled the TARDIS, a symphony of pleasure that spurred the Doctor on, his own arousal growing with each passing second.

The Doctor reached up, his hands gripping the Master's hips, his fingers digging into the firm muscle as he took the Master deeper, relaxing his throat to accommodate the entire length. He could feel the Master's cock throbbing in his mouth, the veins pulsing with each beat of the Master's heart. The Doctor's own cock ached, trapped and throbbing in his pants, leaking pre-cum onto the fabric.

The Master's grip on the Doctor's hair tightened, his hips beginning to move in earnest, fucking the Doctor's mouth with a fierce intensity. The Doctor could feel the Master's cock hitting the back of his throat, his eyes watering as he took everything the Master had to give.

"That's it, Doctor," the Master panted, his voice hoarse with effort. "Take it all. You look so fucking good on your knees, your mouth full of my cock."

The Doctor moaned in response, the vibrations sending shocks of pleasure through the Master's body. The Master's breaths came in ragged gasps, his body tensing as he neared his climax, but he held back, not yet ready to release.

With a final, deep thrust, the Master pulled out of the Doctor's mouth, his cock glistening with saliva, a string of it connecting his cock to the Doctor's lips. The Doctor looked up at the Master, his eyes filled with a mix of defiance and desperation, his lips swollen and red.

The Doctor then stood before Master Danny, his cock already hard and ready, a wicked smile playing on his lips. He watched as the Doctor dropped to his knees, his eyes locked on the Master's cock with a hunger that sent a shiver of anticipation down the Master's spine.

"Is this what you want, Master Danny?" he purred, his voice a low, seductive growl. "To taste me? To please me?"

Master Danny leaned in, his tongue flicking out to taste the Master, a low moan escaping his lips as he took the Master fully into his mouth. The Doctor’s hips jerked, a surge of pleasure coursing through his body as the Master began to move, his lips and tongue working in perfect harmony to drive the Doctor wild with desire.

The Doctor's hands found their way into the Master's hair, guiding his movements, setting a slow, torturous pace. He could feel the Master's hands gripping his hips, the Master Danny's fingers digging into his flesh, urging him on. The Doctor's moans filled the TARDIS, a symphony of pleasure that echoed through the chamber, his body trembling.

The Master's head bobbed faster, his suction tighter, his tongue swirling around the sensitive tip of the Doctor's cock. The Doctor could feel himself building, his body tensing, his balls drawing up tight against his body, but he refused to let go, not yet.

With a final, deep thrust, the doctor pulled out of the master's mouth, his cock glistening with saliva, a string of it connecting his cock to the Master's lips. The Doctor looked up at him, his eyes filled with a mix of defiance and desperation, his lips swollen and red, his chest heaving with exertion.

"Good boy," the Doctor praised, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "Now it's my turn to return the favor."

The Doctor pulled the Master to his feet, their lips capturing in a fierce, hungry kiss, his tongue invading, claiming, possessing. He could taste himself on the Doctor's lips, a heady, intoxicating sensation that sent his desires soaring.

"My turn," the Master growled, his voice a low, dangerous promise.

He turned the Doctor around, pressing him face-first against the console, his body trembling with anticipation. The Master reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of lubricant, coating his fingers before reaching down to prepare the Doctor. His fingers explored, teasing and stretching, eliciting moans and curses from the Doctor.

"Master, please," the Doctor begged, his body arching, his hips pushing back against the Master's fingers. "I need you. I need you now."

The Master smiled, a wicked, knowing smile. "Patience, Doctor. I want this to be perfect."

Once the Doctor was ready, the Master positioned himself at the Doctor's entrance, pushing in slowly, inch by inch, letting the Doctor feel every moment of it. The Doctor moaned, his body pushing back against the Master, taking him deeper.

"That's it, Doctor," the Master panted, his voice hoarse with effort. "Take it all. Take everything I have to give."

The Master began to move, his hips thrusting, his body taking the Doctor with a fierce, almost brutal intensity. The Doctor met his movements, their bodies slamming together, the sound of flesh on flesh filling the TARDIS, a wild, primal rhythm that echoed through the chamber.

The Master reached around, his hand wrapping around the Doctor's length, stroking him in time with his thrusts. The Doctor's cries filled the chamber, a symphony of pleasure and desperation, his body trembling on the edge of release.

"Master, I can't hold on," the Doctor gasped, his body convulsing, his muscles clenching around the Master's cock. "I'm so close. So fucking close."

The Master's movements became more erratic, more desperate, his body tensing as he chased his own climax. "Then let go, Doctor. Let go and fly with me."

With a final, powerful thrust, the Master sent the Doctor over the edge, his body convulsing, his release pulsing out of him, coating the Master's hand. The Master followed soon after, his body shaking, his seed spilling into the Doctor, marking him, claiming him.

They stood there, panting and spent, their bodies still joined, their hearts slowly returning to a normal rhythm. The Master leaned in, his lips capturing the Doctor's in a soft, gentle kiss, a stark contrast to the fierce passion that had just consumed them.

"Well, Doctor," he murmured, his voice a low, satisfied purr. "What do you think? Was it worth the wait?"

The Doctor smiled, a weak, sated smile. "You're a madman, Master. A glorious, insane madman."

The Master laughed, a sound of pure joy and satisfaction. "And you, Doctor, are mine. Now and forever."

With that, he unlocked the handcuffs, his arm wrapping around the Doctor's waist, holding him close as they stood there, their bodies cooling, their hearts content, their bond stronger than ever, forged in the fires of pure, unadulterated passion.

Chapter Text

And so after a little bit of skin-on-skin cuddling, the Doctor and the Master stepped out of the TARDIS, where the others were waiting. And Julien Baker was back.

“Sorry, we were, uh… negotiating…” said the Doctor nervously, with his anus still pulsating and frankly quite a bit sore.

“WE COULD HEAR YOU!” they all shouted back in unison.

The Doctor noticed Julien Baker being back. He would never not notice. Her music got him through the whole Rose being trapped in an alternate universe situation. Rejoice is SO their song.

“Julien you’re back!” Exclaimed the Doctor happily.

“Yeah,” Julien began, “Javert was a little too kinky for my liking, too much piss, too much nose and ear stuff… plus I heard there was gay sex happening over here-”

“THERE WAS NOT.” Shouted the doctor, with such disconfidence in the statement that nobody would ever think it to be true.
“Anyway,” began the Master-

CRACK.

A fissure split the beige ceiling like a lightning bolt in reverse. Behind the desk, the Nutcracker statue shuddered. The screen above Danny’s head glitched violently, flashing between fonts, styles, decades.

The Nutcracker turned its head 180 degrees.

Its jaw clicked open.

“Designation: F.A.V.O.R.
Fixed. Anchor. Variables. Override. Reality.”
Wilfred dropped his mug. It shattered. Julien's guitar vibrated as if remembering something.

The Doctor froze. “No. That’s not possible. That’s just a myth. A failsafe system…”

“Failsafe?” Danny asked brightly, his smile too wide. “Oh, no. No, no. This is the backbone of your entire reality. It’s the reason things happen the way they do. The reason your little hearts keep beating. The reason we regenerate.”

The room went dead silent.

Julien Baker struck a soft, minor chord.
The walls flickered between 1832, a beige office, and something made of sound.

The Doctor’s mouth opened, but no words came.

“Core protocol,” said the Nutcracker.
“Maintain narrative continuity. Prevent paradox fatality in high-value characters. Secondary effect: enable Time Lord cellular regeneration.”
The Master blinked.

“…Wait, you’re saying our regenerations?”

“Are algorithmic,” the Doctor finished, his voice hollow. “We weren’t infinite. We were… consistent.”

Wilfred swore under his breath. “So immortality is just a narrative mechanic.”

Danny nodded, smug. “Exactly. So when F.A.V.O.R. breaks, you don’t come back.”

The Master scoffed. “That’s absurd. The story would never delete me.”

Julien, still tuning, muttered, “It let you have a blond era and didn’t blink.”

Everyone turned.

The Master’s eye twitched. “That was a phase. I was exploring.”

“Exploring bleach,” said Fantine.

Behind them, the ceiling began to melt into stars.

Julien began to play “Go Home.” Slowly. Tenderly. Like someone unraveling time with a pocketknife.

The screen above Danny’s head began to glitch again.

ANCHOR POINT: FANTINE = NON-COMPLIANT
STRUCTURE BREACH IMMINENT
SENTIMENTALITY EXCEEDING PARAMETERS
Danny looked furious. “Stop playing. You're destabilizing the metadata.”

Julien didn’t even blink. “You can’t silence music. It was never canon.”

Cosette, still standing like a doll in the corner, blinked rapidly. Her synthetic smile cracked.

“I… remember this,” she whispered. “You used to hum it. In the cold.”

Fantine turned. “Cosette?”

“You sang to me,” Cosette said. “Before I had a brand deal. Before the algorithm filtered my memory into something manageable.”

Her voice trembled.

“I had a mother.”

The Nutcracker shrieked in binary.

Danny stepped forward, eyes gleaming. “This ends now. You go quietly, Fantine, and the rest of the timeline holds.”

Fantine squared her shoulders.

“I’ve lived in death my whole life. Surrounded by it, watching it, feeling it. I’ve been on the brink of death my whole life. I will not die just to make your spreadsheet feel clean.”

“You are a tragedy in a story,” Danny snarled. “You are grief with a name.”

Fantine took Bannakaffalatta’s hand.

“I was. Then I met him. And I became someone.”

Julien kept playing. The chords floated like ghosts.

“I won’t die for someone else’s closure,” Fantine said. “I won’t vanish for structure. I am not a plot device.”
“I am the point of departure.”

The Nutcracker began to rattle violently.

ERROR: ANCHOR POINT REJECTION
STRUCTURE COLLAPSING
TIME LORD: REGENERATION FUNCTION = 0
The Doctor sank to his knees.

“We-,” he whispered. “We can’t regenerate anymore.”

The Master went quiet. For once.

Then: “I liked regenerating. Except the blond phase.”

“Everyone hated the blond phase,” muttered Wilfred.

Cosette stepped forward. “I don’t want to be perfect anymore. I want to remember.”

Julien changed keys. She and Fantine sang softly, overlapping verses:

“There is a castle…”
“I’m tired of washing my hands…”
“Aren’t any floors for me to sweep…”
“God I wanna go home…”

The Nutcracker burst into white dust.

The screen above Danny’s head short-circuited, sparks raining from the word:
F.A.V.O.R.
F@VOR
𝔉𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯
Danny began to glitch.
His form stuttered. Between YouTube thumbnail, Time Lord robes, Vine edit, sitcom laugh track.

He screamed. “No. No, you can’t! I wrote this! I own this!”

Fantine stepped forward. “Then write something better.”

Sun Master Danny’s mouth twisted.

“I won’t… I WON’T I WON’T I WON’T.”

And then Master Danny jumped into the sun. Yeah the literal fucking sun. In turn, it swallowed him. It became him. Or rather, he became it.
He stretched upward, crackling into beams, his body unraveling like film stock on fire.
He became light. He became flame. He became

The literal fucking sun.

In the sky above them. Rising slow and furious. A new sun hung in the heavens, pulsing like a grudge.
The algorithm, the Master, the glitch… now a burning god overhead. He looked down smiling upon them like in a child’s drawing of the sun but with the face of Danny Gonzales or The Master I guess.

The Doctor stared at Evil Sun Master Danny.

“…Well.”

Fantine turned to Bannakaffalatta.His spikes protruded a little extra. Just for her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Chapter Text

It had been raining for hours, but the rain didn’t fall, as Sun Master Danny burned too bright in the sky to allow the fall of rain. It hovered midair like an unfinished thought. The light was dull and indifferent, the color of hospital linen left too long under fluorescent bulbs. There were no shadows anymore, only the illusion of stillness. Even time felt paused, like it was waiting for someone else to speak first.

They found the chapel by accident, if such things could still be called accidents. It stood at the edge of a nameless field, leaning slightly to one side, as if ashamed of its own endurance. Half the roof had collapsed. The altar was cracked down the center, like a ribcage too tired to hold a heart. The place smelled of damp wood and distant smoke, as though something holy had died here a long time ago and no one had come to claim the body.

Fantine sat near what remained of the altar, her shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders, knees tucked beneath her like she was trying to make herself smaller than the silence. Her breath came shallow and even, not because she was calm, but because she had learned to take only what she needed. The coughing had stopped. That frightened her more than anything.

She hadn’t spoken since they arrived. Not out of bitterness. Not even sadness. There was simply nothing left to say. And yet Bannakaffalatta sat beside her, saying nothing, moving even less. His eyes glowed faintly in the half-light. He seemed smaller somehow. As if his body knew not to take up more space than hers. That, too, she appreciated.

The Doctor was pacing. Not out of nervousness, but calculation. He moved like a man navigating equations too large for words. His coat trailed behind him. His hands occasionally twitched toward his pockets, then stopped. Everything around them felt wrong, not broken exactly, but tilted at a degree no one had the courage to measure. He knew what it meant. The timeline was bending. Fracturing. And it was her. It was Fantine.

She looked up just long enough to meet his eyes across the broken pews. “You feel it, don’t you?”

He stopped. Nodded once. “Yes.”

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said. Her voice didn’t carry far.

“You’re not breaking time,” he replied, “but you are asking it to change.”

Fantine gave a small, humorless laugh. “All I did was not die.”

“And the universe doesn’t know what to do with that,” he said.

Julien was sitting near a stained-glass window that had lost its color. Her guitar was resting across her lap, but her hands were still. Wilson leaned against a wall, rubbing his eyes with the weariness of someone who had lived through too many metaphors.

“I think,” the Doctor said slowly, “there might be a way to contain the paradox. Not to erase it. Not to pretend it never happened. Just to hold it, safely, until it settles.”

Fantine raised her head. “You’re talking like time is something you can cradle.”

The Doctor walked toward her. “Gallifrey had a way. When a Time Lord needed to forget who they were, they could transfer their identity into an object. A piece of technology called a Chameleon Arch. It stored memory. History. Entire timelines. Compressed them into a vessel.”

Julien looked up. “Like a black box for the soul.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “I used one once. I became human. I forgot everything. But the watch remembered.”

Fantine’s eyes narrowed. “You think I used one?”

“I think someone did. Someone who wanted to preserve you. Not your body. Not even your choices. Just the possibility of you. A version of you the world didn’t make room for.”

Fantine tried to imagine it. Another self, not better, just unruined. Someone who hadn’t given away teeth and hair to pay for medicine that didn’t work. Someone who hadn’t died in a hospital without a name. The idea filled her with something sharp. It wasn’t hope. It was too late for that. It was grief with a heartbeat.

“What happens if we find the watch?” she asked.

The Doctor crouched beside her. “Best case, we stabilize you. Give the paradox a shape. A story. Something time can accept.”

“And the worst case?”

“You’re overwritten.”

She nodded slowly. “That sounds familiar.”

Bannakaffalatta shifted beside her. He had not spoken in some time. His eyes flickered once before he spoke. “I do not want to lose you.”

She turned toward him, startled by the honesty in his voice.

“I don’t know if I’m worth saving,” she said quietly.

“You are already saved,” he replied. “You just haven’t realized it.”

There was a long pause. A kind of hush that seemed to settle over the entire chapel.

Then Fantine reached for his hand.

It was cold, but steady.

She leaned her head gently against his shoulder. She did not speak. She simply closed her eyes and let the moment hold her like it mattered. And for once, no one tried to interrupt it.

Eventually, the Doctor stood and began to pace again. His movements were slower now, more deliberate.

“We would need to find the watch,” he said. “But it’s likely hidden. These things don’t advertise themselves.”

“And if we don’t find it?” Wilson asked.

The Doctor didn’t answer.

Julien strummed a single, broken chord.

And that was when the sky split open.

They ran outside, and there was Sun Master Danny, burning with the fire of millions of years

He gleamed. Like a reflection from something no one wanted to see clearly.

“You’re looking for the fob watch,” he said. “How nostalgic.”

The Doctor stepped forward. “You know where it is.”

Danny smiled. “Of course I do. I keep all the broken things.”

Fantine stood slowly, still holding Bannakaffalatta’s hand. “What do you want?”

Danny made a noise halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “You want the paradox restored. You want your soul given back to the timeline. Then I want something in return.”

He turned slowly, arms spread like a man conducting a funeral hymn.

“A cow,” he said, as if it were sacred. “As white as cum.”

No one spoke.

Danny continued, voice rising.

“A cape. As red as blood.”

Julien rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

“Hair. As yellow as corn.”

Fantine’s jaw clenched.

“And a slipper,” he finished, “as pure as gold.”

He smiled, teeth too straight to be kind. “Bring them to me. Then you can have your watch.”

And just like that, he was gone. The clouds closed behind him with all the ceremony of a slammed book.

Silence fell again.

Fantine looked down at her hand still joined with Bannakaffalatta’s.

Then she looked up.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s find this fucking cow.”

Chapter Text

The TARDIS landed in a clearing that had no business being green.

It stretched in every direction, lush and soft, wrapped in a light too golden to come from any sun they knew. The grass bent underfoot without resistance. Trees surrounded the space like witnesses. They bore no fruit, no leaves. Just long ribbons of bark peeling gently in the breeze, each one inscribed with names no one remembered carving.

It smelled like honey and static.

No one spoke when they stepped out. Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything about the place made conversation feel irrelevant. Even the Doctor was quiet. He scanned with his screwdriver once, frowned, and tucked it away.

“This place is outside logic,” he said. “A pocket left behind by a dying planet. Or maybe a dream someone had before they died.”

“Charming,” said Wilson. He already looked tired. “Where’s the cow?”

The Doctor tilted his head. “It’s here. Somewhere. Or rather… it’s always about to arrive.”

Julien wandered to the edge of the clearing, strumming her guitar as she walked. The chords were soft, almost apologetic. She seemed to be playing more for the trees than the people.

Fantine stood still.

The moment she stepped onto the grass, something in her bones shifted. Not painfully. Just deeply. Like a drawer being opened that she hadn’t known was there. Her breath caught, and she gripped the shawl around her shoulders a little tighter.

Bannakaffalatta stepped beside her, not saying anything. He simply looked at her, the way he always did, like she was the reason the stars hadn’t gone out yet.

She turned toward him. “Do you feel it too?”

He nodded. “This place remembers things.”

Fantine stared out across the grass. “What if I don’t want to remember?”

Bannakaffalatta’s voice was gentle. “Then I will remember for you.”

It was a simple promise. But it settled into her like warmth.

They walked a little further, alone but not apart. The others faded behind them. The air was thick with the hush of old prayers and new chances. Somewhere, a cow mooed. Distant. Ghostly. As if it hadn’t yet decided whether it existed.

They stopped by a low stone wall that circled nothing. It wasn’t old. It just felt that way. Covered in moss, etched with names in a language Fantine almost recognized but couldn’t translate.

She sat down, slowly.

So did he.

The silence between them was fuller than most conversations she’d had in her life.

Her voice was soft when she broke it. “I keep thinking… if I open the watch, I might disappear. I might lose the me that found you.”

Bannakaffalatta looked down at his hands, fingers still smudged from soot and gunpowder and everything that came before. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it will make you more real.”

“What if I don’t want to be real?” Her voice trembled now. “What if I just want this?”

He reached for her. Not quickly. Not with urgency. Just… inevitably.

When his hand found hers, it was warm from the sun.

“You are not a mistake,” he said. “You are not a glitch. You are something that fought its way back.”

Her eyes filled, but no tears fell. “They’ll call this impossible.”

“They already have,” he said. “And yet here we are.”

She looked at him then. Fully.

Not as a miracle.

Not as an alien.

But as the only thing that had looked at her without wanting to rewrite her.

The clearing held its breath.

Fantine reached up, gently brushing her fingers along the side of his faceplate.

“You’ve always been warm,” she whispered. “But I never noticed until I was cold everywhere else.”

He said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

Bannakaffalatta turned to Fantine, his eyes reflecting the ethereal glow of the field. "Something feels different here," he murmured, stepping closer to her. His presence was electric, and Fantine could feel the hairs on her arms standing up. "Do you feel it too?" Fantine nodded, her heart racing. "Yes, it's like the air itself is alive." He reached out, gently touching her cheek.

He slid his hands beneath her shirt, feeling the warmth of her skin. She shuddered as his fingers traced circles around her nipples, which hardened instantly. He broke their kiss and pulled back slightly, looking down at her with dark desire. Then he dropped to his knees, pulling her skirt down roughly.

She gasped as he tugged her panties down, exposing her glistening pussy to the cool air. He buried his face between her thighs, inhaling her scent deeply before running his tongue along her wet slit. She cried out, grabbing handfuls of his spikes as he licked and sucked eagerly, teasing her clit until she was shaking with pleasure.

Bannakaffalatta growled in frustration, knowing he needed to take control of the situation again. He wasn't used to losing focus, especially with a woman. But something about Fantine was different. She had an innocence about her that was refreshing, yet also dangerous. "You're right," he said finally, stepping back from her. "We can't let our guard down." She looked at him, confusion etched on her face. "What do you mean?"

"Time to get serious," he said, retrieving a small black case from inside the TARDIS. He flipped it open, revealing an array of electrodes and wires. Fantine's eyes widened. "What is that?" "It's called an ECT machine. Electroconvulsive Therapy. We'll use it to shock your brain into submission." She swallowed hard. "But won't that hurt?" "A bit," he admitted.

“I’m not sure-”, began Fantine, but before she could finish she was being strapped down. She started to scream for help but she knew nobody was coming.

Bannakaffalatta grinned wickedly as he attached the electrodes to Fantine's temples. "Don't worry, sweetheart," he purred, "this won't hurt much." He placed another electrode on her chest, just above her left breast, and another on her lower abdomen. "Just relax and enjoy the ride." Fantine tried to struggle, but the straps held her fast. She whimpered, her body tense with fear and anticipation.

He pushed two fingers into her, feeling how wet she already was. He groaned at the heat surrounding him, his cock twitching as he imagined sliding inside of her. He curved his fingers, rubbing against the spot that made her cry out, her body writhing beneath his touch. He added another finger, stretching her, preparing her for what was to come. She was so tight, and he couldn't wait to feel her squeezing his cock.

As the shocks began to deliver to Fantine, Bannakaffalatta dug his claws into the skin of her hips, causing blood to drip down her gorgeous body in large amounts.

He ran his claws through the blood, coating his cock generously. He pressed the tip against her entrance, feeling the heat radiating from within. She cried out as he pushed into her, the mixture of pain and pleasure overwhelming. He began to thrust, slowly at first, allowing her to adjust to his size. The sight of her bound and helpless before him sent a rush of adrenaline through his veins.

Fantine's mind raced as the initial shock of the electric current subsided, leaving her nerves tingling and her body aching for release. She felt the familiar surge of arousal that accompanied pain, her pussy tightening around Bannakaffalatta's thick cock as he continued to fuck her with slow, deliberate thrusts.

Fantine gasped as Bannakaffalatta pulled out of her, leaving her feeling empty and wanting. He moved around to stand in front of her, his eyes locked onto hers. She could see the hunger in them, the raw primal desire that mirrored her own feelings. He grabbed a handful of her hair, tilting her head back sharply. "Open your mouth," he commanded, his voice gruff and demanding.

Fantine hesitated for a moment, then parted her lips, her breath hitching in anticipation. Bannakaffalatta brought his bloody hand to her mouth, smearing the crimson liquid across her lips. "Lick it clean," he ordered, his voice low and commanding. Fantine tentatively extended her tongue, tasting the metallic tang of her own blood.

"Taste it, slut," Bannakaffalatta demanded. Fantine's tongue darted out, swirling over the pad of his thumb. She tasted copper and salt, a hint of sweetness from her sweat. Her pussy clenched at the degrading word, her breath quickening. He rubbed the blood into her lips, painting her mouth red, and Fantine could smell the musk of his arousal mixed with the iron scent of her blood.

Bannakaffalatta's voice grew low and guttural, a feral rumble that seemed to vibrate through the air itself. "That's it, little whore. Clean my fingers. Show me how much you want to please me." His eyes narrowed as he watched her obediently lick and suck at his digits, savoring the coppery flavor of her own life essence. "So hungry for my cock, aren't you? Begging for it with your tongue."

He thrust his fingers deeper into her mouth, forcing her to gag around them. "Look at me while you choke on my fingers," he growled. Fantine struggled to keep her eyes open as tears welled up, blurring her vision. "Good girl," he purred, withdrawing his fingers with a wet pop. He gripped her chin, smearing blood across her cheeks and jaw. "Now, beg for my cock." Fantine whimpered, her body trembling with need.

Bannakaffalatta's grip tightened on Fantine's chin, his claws digging into her soft flesh. "I said, beg for my cock," he repeated, his voice a low snarl. "Tell me how badly you want it." Fantine's breath hitched, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she stared up at him, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and lust. "P-p-please," she stammered, her voice barely audible. "Please. I need it."

"Please," Fantine whispered, her voice trembling with desperation. "I need your cock. Please fuck me." Bannakaffalatta's lips curled into a cruel smile, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "Such a good little slut," he murmured, releasing her chin to grip her throat instead. His fingers squeezed lightly, cutting off her air supply just enough to make her gasp for breath.

Bannakaffalatta's grip on Fantine's throat tightened even more, his eyes boring into hers. "And why do you deserve my cock, slut?" Fantine's eyes watered as she struggled to breathe, her pussy dripping onto the ground below her. "Because I'm your whore," she choked out. "Your little fucktoy." "Mmm, yes," Bannakaffalatta purred, loosening his hold on her throat so she could draw in a ragged breath. "My little fucktoy."

Fantine's body convulsed violently as Bannakaffalatta delivered another powerful shock with the ECT machine. Her back arched, her muscles spasming uncontrollably, and a strangled cry escaped her throat. The intensity of the pain was overwhelming, but it only served to heighten her arousal. She could feel every nerve ending in her body sparking to life, every cell tingling with raw energy.

Bannakaffalatta released Fantine's throat, his grip shifting down to encircle her slim waist. He pulled her close, pressing her body against his as he ground his hip against her pelvis. "Suck it off," he growled, his voice low and dangerous. He coated his shaft with her blood again, the slick crimson liquid glistening obscenely in the dim light. He presented his cock to her mouth, the tip already weeping precum.

"Oh!" Fantine screamed as another violent shock surged through her body. Her legs thrashed wildly, kicking up dust and leaves, while her fingers clawed at the earth beneath her palms. Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the blood and sweat that coated her skin. Her lungs burned as she gasped for breath, her heart hammering against her ribcage.

Bannakaffalatta watched with eager anticipation as Fantine writhed beneath the force of the electric shock. The sight of her in such distress caused his cock to stiffen further, if possible. He was a creature of chaos and darkness, drawn to suffering and destruction. And yet, despite all that, he found himself inexplicably captivated by this human woman-her resilience, her passion, her unwavering spirit.

As the final pulses of the electric shock faded away, Bannakaffalatta's eyes remained fixed on Fantine's quivering form. Her body was slick with perspiration and blood, her chest heaving with each ragged breath. The sight of her helplessness stirred something primal within him, fueling his insatiable desire to dominate and possess. He knelt between her spread legs, his gaze lingering on her swollen, dripping pussy.

He reached down and grabbed her hips, yanking her body toward him with a sudden violence that elicited a startled gasp from Fantine. He positioned his cock at her entrance, feeling the heat radiating from her core. Without warning, he slammed into her, impaling her fully on his throbbing length. Fantine let out a long, low moan as he began to pound into her relentlessly.

He pinned her down with his weight, trapping her beneath him as he drove into her mercilessly. The sounds of their bodies slapping together filled the air, punctuated by Fantine's cries of pleasure and pain. He could feel her inner muscles clench around his cock, trying desperately to milk him dry. But Bannakaffalatta was far from finished with her. Not by a long shot.

Bannakaffalatta leaned back, pulling Fantine with him. He sat on his heels, bringing her upright so that she straddled him, his cock still embedded deep inside her. He grasped her hips tightly, guiding her movements as she rode him. "Fuck yourself on my cock, slut," he growled, using her body for his own pleasure.

Bannakaffalatta gripped Fantine's hips tightly, lifting her slightly before slamming her back down onto his cock. He set a brutal pace, using her body for his own pleasure as she bounced up and down on his lap. "That's it," he grunted, watching her tits bounce with each impact. "Ride my cock like the dirty little slut you are."

His grip tightened on her hips, bruising her tender flesh as he guided her movements. "Faster," he commanded, his voice harsh and demanding. "Make yourself cum on my cock." Fantine whimpered, her body obeying even as her mind rebelled against the humiliation of it all. She braced her hands on his shoulders, using them for leverage as she lifted herself up and down on his shaft.

Bannakaffalatta's claws dug into Fantine's hips, marking her delicate skin as he forced her to ride him harder, faster. "Come on, slut," he taunted, his voice a low growl. "Show me how much you love my cock." He leaned forward, capturing one of her nipples between his teeth and biting down sharply. Fantine cried out, her body bucking wildly against him.

Fantine wrapped her arms around his neck, grinding herself against him frantically. Bannakaffalatta snarled, flipping her onto her back once more. He loomed over her, his muscles coiled like a predator ready to strike. "You want me to fill you up, don't you?" he growled.

Bannakaffalatta withdrew from Fantine, his cock glistening with her juices and his own precum. He grabbed her ankles, spreading her legs wide apart as he positioned himself between them once more. Leaning down, he licked a hot trail up her thigh, pausing briefly to nibble on the sensitive skin before moving higher. He swirled his tongue around her clit, eliciting a moan from Fantine.

Bannakaffalatta lowered his mouth onto Fantine's, kissing her deeply as he thrust back into her. Their tongues clashed, his tasting faintly of metal from the blood he'd made her lick earlier. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest, matching the frantic beat of her own. His lips were surprisingly soft, contrasting with the rough handling of his body.

Bannakaffalatta broke the kiss, his breathing ragged as he stared down at Fantine. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen and bruised from his kisses. Her eyes were glazed with lust, her body trembling beneath him. He could feel her inner muscles clamping down on his cock, desperate for release. But he wasn't ready to let her cum just yet. Not until he left his mark on her. Literally.

Bannakaffalatta leaned back, his cock still buried deep inside Fantine. He looked down at her body, sweat-slicked and trembling, and smiled wickedly. With one hand, he traced a path along her sternum, his claw lightly scratching her skin. Fantine shivered at the sensation, her breath catching in her throat as she anticipated what was to come.

He dragged his claw downwards, carving a shallow groove into her soft flesh. Fantine cried out, her body arching off the ground as pain bloomed across her stomach. Blood welled up from the wound, trickling down her sides in rivulets. Bannakaffalatta repeated the motion, tracing the lines of letters into her skin. Each stroke sent jolts of agony coursing through Fantine's body, but she bit her lip and endured it silently.

He carved each letter carefully, ensuring the wounds would leave permanent scars. "B-A-N-N-A-K-A-F-F-A-L-A-T-T-A," he enunciated, his voice low and gravelly as he etched his name into her flesh. Fantine's breath came in short pants, her nails digging into the dirt as she bore the pain. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, mixing with the blood pooling on her abdomen.

The electric shock rocked through Fantine, making her scream and writhe beneath Bannakaffalatta. The machine buzzed loudly, the air crackling with static electricity. Her body convulsed violently, her spine arching off the ground as waves of pain washed over her. Through tear-filled eyes, she saw stars burst behind her eyelids, and her vision went white.

Bannakaffalatta watched with dark delight as Fantine's body jerked and spasmed under the electric current. He felt a savage thrill at the power he held over her, the ability to inflict such exquisite torment. As the shock subsided, he withdrew from her, his cock glistening with a mixture of their fluids. Fantine lay panting, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

Bannakaffalatta mounted Fantine once more, driving his cock back into her soaked pussy. He gripped her hips roughly, holding her in place as he began to piston in and out of her. His cock swelled inside her, stretching her walls to accommodate his size. Fantine moaned, her body aching from the electric shock but alight with renewed desire.

Bannakaffalatta's hips snapped forward, driving his cock deeper into Fantine's willing flesh. He pounded into her with relentless fury, his balls slapping against her ass with each thrust. The sound of their bodies colliding echoed through the forest, accompanied by Fantine's cries of ecstasy. "Is this what you wanted, slut?" Bannakaffalatta growled, leaning down to nip at her earlobe. "To be fucked like a common whore?"

"Answer me, whore," Bannakaffalatta demanded, his voice a low growl in her ear. "Do you like being treated like the filthy slut you are?" Fantine moaned, her hips bucking against him involuntarily. "Yes," she gasped. "God, yes. Treat me like your whore. Use me." A feral grin spread across Bannakaffalatta's face. He reared back, gripping Fantine's thighs tightly as he pounded into her with renewed vigor.

Bannakaffalatta's cock swelled inside Fantine, stretching her even further as he neared his climax. He could feel the pressure building at the base of his spine, the familiar tingling sensation that signaled his impending release. With a roar, he thrust deep into her one last time, burying himself to the hilt as his liquid erupted from him in hot, pulsing jets.

Fantine's body tensed as she felt the first spurt of Bannakaffalatta's cum fill her. She cried out, her inner muscles clamping down on his cock as her own orgasm crashed over her. Wave after wave of pleasure rippled through her, stealing her breath and making her see stars. Bannakaffalatta groaned, his hips jerking erratically as he pumped his seed deep into her.

Bannakaffalatta collapsed atop Fantine, his chest heaving with exertion. He could feel her heartbeat racing beneath him, their sweat-soaked skin sticking together as they both struggled to catch their breath. After a moment, he rolled off her, lying beside her on the cool forest floor. Fantine turned her head to look at him, her eyes shining with a mix of fear, awe, and desire.

Bannakaffalatta propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at Fantine with a smirk. Her body was still trembling slightly from the aftermath of her orgasm, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she fought to regain her breath. He trailed a finger gently down her side, following the curve of her hip before drifting lower, dipping into the pool of his cum that had begun to leak out of her well-fucked pussy.

Bannakaffalatta eyed Fantine like a predator, his gaze roaming over her naked body. He paused behind her, running his claws through her hair and gripping it firmly. "Let's go back to the others," he growled in her ear. Fantine nodded weakly, her legs still shaking from their encounter. Bannakaffalatta led her back to where the others were looking for the cow.

Chapter Text

As Fantine and Bannakaffalatta got dressed, it started to snow.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just enough to notice.
Like the world had decided to shiver and didn’t want to say anything about it.

Fantine looked up from where she sat, arms around her knees. The sky hadn’t changed. It still hung low and gray, the color of metal that forgot its name. But the flakes were real. Cold on her skin. Soft in her hair.

Julien was sitting a little ways off, cross-legged on a stone, guitar untouched in her lap. She was looking down, as if the snow embarrassed her.

Bannakaffalatta stood nearby, motionless. His cooling fans slowed to a low, thoughtful hum.

The Doctor had stopped pacing.

Even Wilfred had gone still.

A sound came through the trees. Not a crunch. Not a rustle.

A footstep. Measured. Round.

And then a shape.

He walked into the field like someone who had been expected for a long time and was trying not to make a fuss about it.

Tall. Pale. Three perfect snowbound spheres stacked one over the other. A scarf wrapped loose around his neck. A hat low over his eyes. Coal buttons. Branch arms. Eyes that were not just coal, but deep. Like someone had made them from memory.

No one spoke.

The snow fell harder. Not wildly. Just with purpose.

He stopped a few paces from the center of the field.

“Happy Birthday,” he said.

His voice was jolly and booming, yet soft. Like a radio tuned halfway between stations. Like snow hitting windows you haven’t looked out of in years.

Wilfred stood.

“You came.”

Frosty smiled. “You called.”

The Doctor said nothing. He watched the exchange with his hands half-curled in his coat pockets. Snow gathered at his shoulders. He didn’t brush it away.

He studied Frosty like a riddle. But he was really watching Wilf.

The Doctor stepped forward, cautious. “You’re not supposed to be real.”

“Neither is love,” said Frosty. “But it keeps happening anyway.”

No one laughed. Not because it wasn’t absurd. But because the absurdity didn’t feel like a joke.

Frosty looked around. He squinted at the empty space beside the tree. Then at the soft depression in the snow where someone had been waiting for something.

“I heard,” he said, “you were looking for a cow.”

Fantine stared at him.

“You heard correctly.”

Frosty nodded.

He removed his hat.

The snow fell harder and faster.

Then rose (Rose Tyler mentioned??).

Only a little. A breath. A curl. Like it remembered something.

It gathered slowly, pulling toward the middle of the field. Not blown. Not stirred. Chosen.

First the shape of hooves. Then the weight of a body. The suggestion of breath. A shoulder. A jaw.

It was not carved. It was not summoned.

It was made.

When the last flake settled, the cow opened its eyes.

White. Still. Present.

Wilfred stepped forward. The snow crunched under his boots.

He looked at the cow. Then at Frosty.

“You always did know how to arrive.”

Frosty tipped his hat. “Only when invited.”

The cow lay down in the snow.

It did not move again.

But it was there.

And that was enough.

The Doctor didn’t move. He kept staring at Wilfred. He felt something in his chest he didn’t have a name for. Time Lords didn’t do yearning. But sometimes they they yearned anyway.

The snow had stopped falling. Not because it was over. But because it had made its point.

The cow stood in the field. Not chewing. Not moving. Just existing the way some things do. Its breath rose in slow curls. It had no shadow.

Wilfred sat on the stone fence, staring at it like it was something he’d once tried to conjure and gotten stuck halfway.

The Doctor watched him for a long time before he spoke.

Then he stepped forward.

He crossed his arms. Looked Wilfred up and down. Then at Frosty. Then at Wilfred again.

“You know him.”

Wilfred said nothing.

The Doctor tried again.

“You didn’t even look surprised when he showed up.”

Silence.

“You two aren’t...”

Frosty looked up. “No.”

Wilfred’s voice was quiet. “Not anymore.”

The Doctor turned toward Frosty. “You’re not even alive.”

Frosty’s coal eyes were blank. “Neither are you. Technically.”

The Doctor didn’t smile. His shoulders were tight. He wasn’t cold, but he didn’t feel warm either.

Fantine shifted where she sat near the cow. Bannakaffalatta had stopped pretending not to listen.

The Doctor walked closer.

“I’m trying to make sense of this, Wilf.”

Wilfred didn’t meet his eyes.

The Doctor said, “You were in the war. You worked in a shop. You helped me fight the Master. But this... you didn’t tell me this.”

“I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“I’ve believed worse.”

The Doctor meant it. But he also meant something else. He meant, you could have told me.

Wilfred rubbed his eyes. “It’s not about belief. It’s about shame.”

Frosty turned slightly. His scarf trailed in the frost.

“You’re ashamed of me?” he asked, voice even.

“No,” said Wilfred. “Of who I was before you.”

The Doctor frowned.

Wilfred stood slowly. Looked straight ahead.

“I wasn’t always Wilfred Mott,” he said. “There was a time I wore a top hat and made rabbits disappear. Badly.”

Julien blinked from her perch on the tree stump.

Fantine didn’t react.

Bannakaffalatta said, “You were a magician?”

Wilfred nodded. “Professor Hinkle.”

The Doctor stared. He tried to speak and didn’t.

“You were the villain in Frosty’s story,” he said at last.

“I was the idiot in Frosty’s story.”

Frosty spoke gently. “You were lonely.”

“I was greedy.”

“You were scared,” Frosty said.

Wilfred shook his head. “I wanted the hat back. That’s what started it. I didn’t care about the children. Or about him. Just wanted the magic for myself.”

The Doctor looked at Frosty.

“You melted.”

Frosty nodded. “He let me.”

Wilfred looked away. “I didn’t mean to.”

Frosty stepped forward. “And then Santa came.”

The Doctor blinked. “You met Santa.”

Frosty answered. “He didn’t punish him. He gave him a job. Said the world didn’t need another bitter magician. It needed someone kind.”

The Doctor stared at Wilfred. He hated how it made sense. He hated how it made his chest ache.

“You became kind,” he said.

Wilfred smiled, just barely. “I learned to listen. I gave away the wand. Took a telescope instead.”

The Doctor walked closer to the cow. It turned to look at him. Its eyes were deep and blank like ponds that only reflect.

The Doctor didn’t like the way it watched him. He didn’t like being reminded that some things just existed and didn’t need him to fix them.

Frosty continued.

And as Winkle- I meant Wilf worked at the workshop, we saw eachother more and more. And soon enough, one thing lead to another and one night-”

“It should have never happened anyway” Wilf interrupted, as a wave of melancholy washed over him.

“You know that’s not true. You know what we had was love. And you know that you ruined it when you left without a trace during the night.” Frosty declared.

There was a long pause of silence. The snow falling seemed loud.

Wilfred said, “I buried the hat in the garden.”

Frosty replied, “I dug it up last winter.”

“You did?”

“Wanted to see if it still worked.”

Wilfred tilted his head. “Did it?”

Frosty looked around at the snow, the cow, the strangers standing still inside a broken timeline.

He nodded.

The Doctor sat down slowly. He didn’t want to keep standing. He was tired, but not in a way rest could help.

Fantine looked at Wilfred. “Do you still love him?”

Wilfred didn’t blink. “I never stopped.”

The Doctor looked away.

Frosty stepped closer.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the hat.

It wasn’t grand. Just black felt. Faded ribbon. A little patch near the brim.

He handed it to Wilfred.

“You can have it back,” he said.

Wilfred didn’t take it.

“I don’t need it,” he said. “I have enough magic.”

The Doctor looked at the hat like it was something dangerous. Something sacred.

They stood there in the field. Old man and snowman. Former villain and impossible memory.

And the cow lay down again.

The Doctor looked between them.

“Why now?” he asked. “Why come back?”

Frosty said, “Because he said my name.”

Julien plucked a note. The wind carried it.

Wilfred put the hat down beside him on the wall.

“I’m tired,” he said.

Frosty nodded. “Me too.”

They sat together. Not touching. Just near.

The Doctor watched them. He didn’t move.

Something had always hurt somewhere in his chest, something is always aching his two hearts.

But this…the hurt grew. Into unbearable pain that ate him whole. A scream was trapped inside his throat, but the Doctor did not dare let it out.

And the Doctor began to cry. Not loudly. Barely a tear, really. But for the Doctor, who hadn’t cried in a millennium, this tear meant everything.

This tear- it was for how the Doctor would die for him, how the Doctor would LIVE for him. For how Wilfred spilled out softness everywhere he went, a strange and tender ability. How the Doctor knew deep down that even if Wilfred never loved Frosty, the Doctor could still never be with him.

He wiped away his tear.

The snow began to fall again.

Soft. Slow. Familiar.

Fantine watched it land on her coat.

Bannakaffalatta blinked snowflakes from his lenses.

Julien began to sing. It wasn’t a song from any world. It was just what the snow asked for.

And in the center of it all, the cow slept.

Its body made of snow. Its breath rising steady.

Not real. Not fake.

Just there.

Like love.

Like shame.

Like stories that forget how to end.

Then the Doctor spoke.

“Well I suppose we should go and find the cape, hair and slipper. Allons-y.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to say.

Chapter Text

The TARDIS was quieter now. No music, no flickering corridors, no urgent creaks. Just the deep breath of the ship and the dull hum of systems straining to keep her upright in a world that no longer followed its own rules. Fantine sat at the edge of the console room, her back resting against the steel railing. Her shawl was wrapped tightly around her shoulders, her hands pale in the low light. The glass of water beside her remained untouched. She hadn’t spoken in over an hour, and silence had started to feel like protection.

Across the console, Bannakaffalatta stood at the controls. He made a slow performance of checking settings and angles, eyes occasionally flicking over to her with quiet concern. He thought she didn’t notice, but she always did. His concern was soft, hovering, never overbearing. And that was almost worse.

“Frosty said the cape was in the forests north of Traken,” he said finally. “A monastery buried in ash.”

Fantine didn’t look up. She heard him, of course. But the words slid through her like thread through worn cloth.

“I can land us nearby,” he added, more gently this time.

She said something under her breath.

He hesitated. “What?”

“I said you don’t have to keep pretending this is about the cape.”

That made him pause.

“It is,” he replied, but not with conviction.

“No, it isn’t.” She looked up at him now. Her voice was calm, but there was weight behind every syllable. “You’re trying to make this all neat. You picked a mission. A relic. A purpose. Because doing something makes it feel like we’re not falling apart.”

“I thought you wanted to find the watch. To stop the Master. To survive.”

“I wanted to rest,” she said, the words catching in her throat. “I wanted you to look at me and not see something to fix.”

He didn’t speak. He watched her carefully, but she wasn’t asking for reassurance.

“You love me like I’m a poem,” she said. “Like I’m the last page of a story. You keep looking for the right way to end it.”

She stood, pulling her shawl tighter. “Just land the ship.”

He did.

The monastery had burned centuries ago. The trees had moved in since then, pale and brittle, with trunks streaked in faded red. The ground was soft underfoot, moss and soot thick between the stones. Time did not feel stable here. It shimmered at the edges, like breath caught between words.

They walked in silence.

Fantine’s hands remained hidden in her shawl. She moved with practiced stillness, her body a ghost of memory and defiance. Bannakaffalatta stayed beside her, watching every breath, adjusting his pace to match hers. He did not speak.

They reached the chapel without needing to search. Something pulled at her chest the moment she stepped over the broken threshold. She knelt beside what remained of the altar, her fingers brushing the cracked stone.

“It’s here,” she said.

He joined her, kneeling too. He began to dig, slowly and carefully. His movements were delicate, as if he were afraid the ground might shatter.

She leaned back and let her eyes close.

“I used to think someone would save me,” she said.

He paused.

“I thought if I stayed kind, if I suffered well, someone would come. Pull me out. Say I mattered.” She opened her eyes and stared at the sky through the broken roof. “But no one did. Not really. Not until you.”

He looked at her now.

“And you—you look at me like I’m something sacred. Like I’m worth saving. But you don’t see the part of me that wants to stop. That wants to lie down and stop trying.”

“I do see you,” he said softly.

“No,” she said. “You see the parts that make you feel good for loving me. You love me like I’m a story. Like I make you brave just by being here.”

“I love you as you are,” he insisted.

“You love me as I make you feel.”

She stood. Her voice was still quiet, but it shook now. “I don’t want to be loved like I’m holy. I want to be seen. And I don’t think you know how to do that.”

She walked out of the chapel.

He didn’t follow.

Not yet.

Bannakaffalatta stayed kneeling in the dirt. His hands were still half-buried in the earth. His sensors ran every diagnostic he could think of, every memory looped and reanalyzed. He thought he had done everything right. He had watched, cared, remained gentle. But maybe that was not what she needed. Maybe he had loved the shape of her grief more than he had loved her.

He kept digging.

When the cape finally emerged from the earth, it was warm in his hands. Red as myth. He held it carefully, letting the fabric drape over his lap like it was something alive. It pulsed faintly, like it remembered being worn.

He stepped outside.

Fantine sat beneath one of the pale trees. She had her head tilted back, eyes closed, face streaked with sweat. She did not acknowledge his presence, but she did not turn him away either.

He sat beside her, not touching, not speaking.

She opened her eyes slowly and looked at the cape.

At first it was just recognition.

Then memory.

Then collapse.

Her fingers moved toward it like they were being pulled. She touched the hem, then the collar, then the lining.

She knew it.

She had worn this once. Back in another life. She had cried into it. She had wrapped Cosette in it. It had been hers in the way only borrowed things can be; briefly, desperately, meaningfully.

And then she saw the stitching.

Along the inside seam, a phrase embroidered in fragile, uneven thread:

no salvation without rot.

That wasn’t hers.

She didn’t sew that. She had never said it.

But it rang through her like a bell.

Her breath caught in her chest.

Then, just above the seam, she saw the mark.

Dark. Red-brown. Small.

Blood.

Her blood.

The image returned all at once. A constable’s backhand, the pain, the breathlessness, her hands shaking as she pressed the cape to her face, trying to hide the mess. She remembered the warmth, the shame, the sick fear of being seen.

And now, that blood had come with her.

Had followed her into this impossible forest, into the arms of a creature who thought he could make her whole.

Her stomach turned.

“I don’t want this,” she said. Her voice was small and cracking. “I don’t want to carry it again.”

She stood, reeling slightly. Bannakaffalatta reached for her but didn’t touch her. She stepped back without anger. Just urgency.

“I left that life behind,” she said. “I died. I died.”

Julien Baker stepped into the clearing. Her hoodie was wrinkled. She had a guitar pick clenched between her teeth. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, which was probably true.

Her eyes landed on the cape. She stopped moving.

“I know that,” she said.

Everyone turned.

Julien walked forward slowly, her hand reaching out.

“I sewed this,” she said. “But I didn’t. I remember the thread. The phrase. I don’t remember why. Or for who.”

Her fingers brushed the lining. She read the words again, and something shifted in her face. Then she looked at Fantine. Just for a moment. And in that moment, they saw each other. Not in memory. Not in history. But in something older than both.

Julien dropped her hand.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s creepy. That’s very creepy.”

She turned around and left, muttering something about tea or whiskey or both. The Doctor smiled a little, but Fantine did not.

She was still looking at the cape like it had whispered her name.

She slowly sat beside Bannakaffalatta again. She did not take the cape in her arms. But she placed her hand near it and let her fingers rest against the moss.

Suddenly, having heard what was going on, the Doctor came tumbling out into the clearing, wild-haired and flushed, his coat half-buttoned and a pocket full of broken string.

“I thought we’d have a bit more time,” he said. “It’s already started.”

“What is this?” Fantine asked. “Why is it here?”

The Doctor stepped forward, cautious now. “That cape exists in two timelines. One where you wore it. One where Julien stitched it for someone else. Both versions are real. Time isn’t keeping things separate anymore. It’s folding.”

Fantine was pale, eyes locked on the blood.

“You were a fixed point,” he continued. “You died. Your death held weight. But now you’re in motion. You’ve created a paradox simply by surviving. By loving. Time is responding by dragging everything connected to you into this convergence. Relics. Memories. Emotion.”

“Julien made this,” Fantine whispered.

“Yes. She stitched it years after your death. She didn’t know why. Just a feeling. A burden. A grief too large to name. And now, because of you, the thread reached backward.”

“It’s mine,” Fantine said. “But not just mine.”

Bannakaffalatta turned toward her. He did not offer comfort or resolution. He just said:

“I am here.”

And this time, she let herself believe it.

Chapter Text

The TARDIS never felt this big until everyone stopped speaking.
It was like the ship itself had learned the shape of their silences. The console dimmed. The hum beneath their feet slowed. Even the time rotor, which was usually the heartbeat of this place, pulsed softer now. Like it didn’t want to interrupt.

They were en route to the next relic: hair as yellow as corn. But they hadn’t arrived yet.

They were just… floating.

Like grief without a funeral.

Fantine sat on a bench with her arms wrapped tight around her chest. Her shawl hung loose. Her face was pale. She hadn’t spoken in hours, but you could see it building in her, the same way you can see a wave gather long before it crashes.

Bannakaffalatta sat on the floor near her knees, trying to be small. His glow was duller than usual, like he was afraid to take up space.

Julien Baker was half-curled on a blanket under the staircase with her guitar, tuning it compulsively. Every so often, she played a single chord and let it ring out like she was waiting for it to answer.

Wilfred leaned against the far wall with his hands in his coat pockets, staring at the glowing column at the center of the console. He hadn’t said anything to the Doctor since they boarded. He hadn’t needed to. The air between them was thick with something unspoken, something hot and old and twisted.

The Doctor circled the console like a ghost trying to convince itself it was still useful. Occasionally he poked a button. Mostly, he just moved.

Fantine’s voice cracked the stillness like a match to dry grass.

“You know what’s cruel?”

Nobody answered.
“I think it was easier when I thought I deserved to die.”

The Doctor stilled.
Wilf’s breath hitched.

Bannakaffalatta looked up, gently.

“I didn’t ask to survive. I didn’t ask to be noticed. Or loved. Or saved.” Fantine’s voice shook. “I was good at being forgotten. I was safe in that.”
She looked down at her hands like they were someone else’s.
“Then you came.” She didn’t even look at Bannakaffalatta. “You with your quiet affection and your endless loyalty and your stupid glowing heart. And you made me think maybe I wasn’t meant to die in the street like garbage.”
Her voice rose.
“You made me believe in tenderness. For the first time. And now-” she finally looked at him, eyes wet, voice splintering. “Now I have to live every moment knowing what I could have had. That I almost got to be a person. That I almost mattered.”
Bannakaffalatta didn’t move. “You do matter.”
“No!” she shouted. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that. You have no idea what it feels like to carry the weight of your own afterthought.”
He flinched. But he didn’t leave.
“If you hadn’t come,” Fantine said, low and guttural, “I wouldn’t have known what a sad, fuck-ass, throwaway failure of a person I really am.”
Wilf winced like he’d been slapped.
“You made me realize I’ve spent my entire life being loved wrong, and now I can’t unsee it. I can’t go back to that silence. I can’t go forward into this mess. I’m stuck. Stuck between knowing what I missed, and knowing I’ll never have it right.”
The Doctor finally looked up. “Fantine…”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, spaceman,” she snapped. “I’m not a timeline to fix. I’m not a math problem. You didn’t even try to help me, you just documented me like I was a beautiful little tragedy.”

“Hey,” Wilfred growled.

She wheeled around.

“And you! You look at me like I’m your granddaughter, like I’m someone to pity, and I’m not! I’m a grown woman with rotting lungs and decades of pain and I don’t want your quiet little sad-man nods!”

Julien’s pick slipped from her fingers and clinked on the floor.

Silence.

Then the Doctor said, “At least I didn’t fuck Frosty.”

Wilfred spun.

“I told you-!”

“Oh, here we go again.” The Doctor shoved off the wall. “You and the ice sculpture. You didn’t- you still don’t even know his last name.”

Wilf looked stricken. “He doesn’t have one. He was frost magic.”

“That’s not a reason to stick your dick in him!”

“Oh, like you haven’t been eye-fucking me since the ship!”

Julien let out a long, tired sigh and began strumming minor sevenths like they were tranquilizers.

Fantine turned to Bannakaffalatta again. Her voice cracked. “You didn’t do this to me. I know that. But you showed me what I could have had, and I can’t-I can’t live with that. If you stay, I’ll keep wanting it. And wanting it makes it worse.”

“I would leave,” he said, quiet. “If it made you hurt less.”

Fantine’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s the worst part. You would.”

The Doctor and Wilf were still glaring at each other, breaths heavy, pulses high, both furious for completely different reasons neither of them were mature enough to name.

“Do you miss him?” Wilf asked. “The Master.”

The Doctor didn’t answer.

“You’re jealous of me, but you still miss him. Admit it.”

“I didn’t ask to love him,” the Doctor said coldly. “Any more than you asked to-”

“To what?” Wilf snapped. “To still be here? To be the only one left in the ashes of your timelines and your guilt? You bring me along like I’m your emotional crutch, Doctor, but you never ask what I want.”

The Doctor’s face cracked open. “What do you want, Wilf?”

Wilf didn’t speak. Just looked away.

Julien, still strumming quietly, murmured, “God. You’re all so fucked.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak,

Wilf cut in.

“Don’t speak.”
The Doctor paused.
Wilf stepped forward slowly. “You always do this,” he said, low. “You swoop in like a goddamn angel with your magic ship and your tragic eyes and you gather up broken people like souvenirs. But you never stay.”

The Doctor’s jaw tightened. “You think I wanted this?”

“I think you need it,” Wilf said. “You need to be worshipped. You need to be grieved. It makes you feel real. But we’re the ones who have to live with the aftermath.”

The console lights flickered.

Julien hit a dissonant chord.

Fantine leaned forward, mouth trembling.

“You let me believe I had a choice,” she said to Bannakaffalatta, barely above a whisper. “You let me think I could be loved without earning it. Without performing. And now I’m terrified. Because I don’t know how to live as anything but a martyr.”

“You do not have to earn this,” he said.

“But I do!” she shouted. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to be good enough for someone to stay. And still, they leave. Always.”

She turned to Wilf. “Did Frosty leave?”

Wilf looked at her like he’d been punched. “He didn’t mean to.”

“But he did.”

Silence.

“So don’t look at me like I’m irrational. I am logical. Every time I open my heart, something leaves. My daughter. My dignity. My body. My life.”

She looked at the Doctor now.

“So why did you bring me back? If I was meant to die, why am I here? What use is a ghost in a dress?”

The Doctor stared at her. His voice, when it came, was quiet and angry.

“Because you’re not a ghost. You’re a fixed point.”

“I don’t care about your timey-wimey nonsense!” she screamed. “I want to know why you let me feel. Why you let me hope. Why-why you stood there and watched me unravel like it was poetic.”

Wilf broke in again. “He does that.”

“You’re one to talk,” the Doctor snapped.

“You’re still in love with someone made of ice particles.”

Wilf lunged forward. “At least he loved me back!”

That landed.

Julien’s guitar fell silent.

Fantine covered her mouth with her hand.

The Doctor stepped back.

“You think I don’t know what it means to be thrown away?” Wilf whispered. “You think I didn’t beg Frosty to stay? I would’ve frozen to death just to hold him one more time.”

The Doctor opened his mouth. Then shut it.
Fantine’s eyes glistened.

“I’m so tired of being proof that love is not enough,” she whispered.

Bannakaffalatta crawled closer.

“You are proof of nothing,” he said. “You are a person. You are not a parable.”

She looked down at him.

“Then stop looking at me like I’m holy.”

“I look at you,” he said, “like you’re real.”

She blinked hard. A single tear fell.

“I’m not used to being seen without being judged.”

“I do not judge you,” he said.

“Then you don’t know me.”

“I know enough,” he said. “I know your breath is still here. That you are still speaking. That you stayed.”

Fantine leaned forward until her forehead touched his.

“I don’t know how to survive this.”
He rested his metal hand on her chest. “Then don’t. Just... be here.”

The lights of the TARDIS warmed. Something old and alive stirred in the circuitry.

Julien finally spoke again.

“You don’t have to heal in order to matter.”

They all turned to look at her.

“I think sometimes we confuse recovery with worth,” she said. “But being ruined doesn’t cancel being real.”

Wilf looked at the Doctor. “You’ve been carrying grief like a trophy.”

The Doctor didn’t deny it.

Fantine let out a long, wet exhale.

No one moved.

No one tried to fix it.

But they all stayed.

And in this ship that was bigger on the inside, where time bent and feelings broke, four people sat quietly in their pain.

Still breathing.

Still broken.

But still together.

Chapter Text

They landed with the small, betraying thud the TARDIS loved best, that sound that always felt like an apology. They were looking for Cassandra Nogram, the keeper of the slipper as pure as gold. The door opened and light spilled out, warm and impossible in an instant, and the Doctor stood in the threshold with his hand on the frame as if the wood might hold him still.

Fantine stepped down first. The air here was thin and smelled of old rain and dust, and the cold that met her felt like someone else’s sorrow. Bannakaffalatta came after, careful as an animal, his chest light blinking slow and steady. Neither of them spoke; the moment of arrival had already said everything they needed to hear.

The Doctor closed the door behind them and did not move from where he stood. He looked at them the way someone measures a fragile instrument. “Just the two of you,” he said. There was no flourish to it. The sentence was ordinary and final.

“Why?” Fantine asked.

“Well-er..” the Doctor began, “Only two with the love as pure as gold may receive the slipper”.

The couple nodded and began to skip down the path yellow brick road style.

They found Cassandra Nogram before the house found them. The path that led to her cottage was not a road so much as a suggestion. An old track browned from weather and absence, lined with stones that looked like teeth and the occasional bell that chimed only when nobody was listening.

The air felt older as they stepped closer, like a room opened after a century of being shut. Bannakaffalatta slowed his gait without meaning to, his little red chest pulsing faintly, as if his circuits were trying to map an unfamiliar geography of age.

Cassandra’s door was a slab of wood so old it had learned to sigh. When she opened it she did not appear so much as she had always been there, sitting somewhere between the threshold and the dark, like an idea that kept outliving the person who thought it. She wore the color of smoke and the texture of pages from books no one had saved. Her hair, if anyone could call the river of it that, ran into the floor and then quietly returned to the ceiling and down again.

One thing was clear about Cassandra. She was very old. Maybe older than time itself.

The eyes that regarded them were small and clear as polished coins. For a moment Fantine thought she saw, reflected in that coin, the face of a sun that might have been Danny once, or might have always been a rumor.

“Cassandra Nogram,” Bannakaffalatta said because he felt the necessity of names. He had read the syllables from the edge of his memory like a prescription.
“Names,” Cassandra said, and the word was a laugh that did not break so much as bend. “They carry weight, children. They are currency and accusation. Come in. In here time will behave itself enough for tea.”

They crossed the threshold and the house rearranged itself politely. The furniture shifted into forms that implied comfort. Candles lit themselves along the mantle. A kettle huffed like a small animal. Cassandra moved with the slow competence of someone who has outlived epithets. Fantine felt the pulse of her own blood slow, as if the room had asked it to make room for history.

“You seek the slipper,” Cassandra said without preamble, and there was a flatness in the way she pronounced it that made the word feel vulnerable. She set a palm on the table between them. The surface was not wood. It was older than wood, something like fossilized longing.

Bannakaffalatta glanced at Fantine. “The Doctor said only those with love as pure as gold may receive it,” he offered, clutching the mission like a compass.
Cassandra’s mouth curved at the edges, but it was not a smile that made her kinder. It was the smile of a person who has watched many kinds of hunger. “Ah. The Doctor speaks in law and legend, always a little impatient for definitions. He sent you here for reasons that are practical and sentimental. He likes rules because they feel safe.”

“Come in,” Cassandra said, and she moved as if she had already been expecting them all day and a year and a life. The house swallowed them in warm, contained time. She did not offer tea. She did not explain. She set a small box on the table and placed between them an old thread and a tiny bell and told them to hold them both. They obeyed because nothing about Cassandra felt optional.

She watched them with a look that had the weight of cataloguing weather. Then, when the room had settled into a hush, she said plainly, “I was with him.” The words were simple, and they folded into the air like a remembered sentence.

Fantine felt the floor move. Bannakaffalatta’s lights dimmed to a more human pulse. Cassandra uncoiled the past without ornament. “Not the sun he became. The man he was before he learned to light himself so the world would look away from what he had done. We were young, in the way old things have young. We kept each other. He left because the question of being more was louder than the promise of being two. He walked toward a thing that would answer his hunger with power.”

There was no theatricality to the confession, only the plainness of a hurt that had been kept and turned over and learned from. Fantine’s throat closed. The idea of the Master as somebody who had once surrendered to ordinary tenderness upended a private wish inside her, and with that upheaval came a tremor of fear. If he had been loved and had left, what else might he leave when faced with a thing that wanted to be claimed?

Cassandra laughed then. It was not sharp. It was the sound of a stone shifted. Her laugh filled the house and brought back a smell Fantine did not recognize but that tugged at the back of her throat like a remembered lullaby.

“You two,” Cassandra said, “come to collect the slipper on a whim and because your Doctor likes romantic tasks. That alone is not why I opened the door.” She folded her hands. Her nails were thin as script. “I shall examine you.”

There was no theatricality to the examination. Cassandra did not reach for herbs or chant in a language they could not hear. Instead she asked them to sit across from each other and take one thing from a small wooden box she set between them. Fantine lifted her hand and found a thread there, spun of something faintly warm and dull as a coin. Bannakaffalatta took a tiny bell carved from an unknown metal that sang like a key when he tilted it.

Cassandra watched them both like one watches an arriving tide, as if she could read the world by the way two things answered to one another.
“Tell me,” she said. “Not what you feel when it is easy. Not what poetry gives you permission to keep. Tell me the thing you will give up first. Tell me the one thing you will refuse even if the whole of your life asks for it.”

Fantine’s answer came in a small sound. “I-” she stopped. Saying the list felt like stepping off a cliff and landing on honesty. “I would give all those things if it meant he was safe. If it meant-” she could not finish.

Bannakaffalatta considered. Machine minds do not speak the language of loss the way human hearts do, but he understood fidelity the way a locksmith understands tumblers. “I would give my travel,” he said. “I would let the ship go. I would stop being what was made if she stayed.”

Cassandra’s face did not change. “Noble,” she said. “Brave. Predictable.” She tapped the thread in Fantine’s hand and the bell in Bannakaffalatta’s. The thread shivered and then darkened, as if the warmth in it had been bled out. The bell’s song turned thin, like wind through a cracked pipe.

“You two love in pieces that are honest,” Cassandra told them. “You love with hunger and with the readiness to be small for the other. That confuses most witches because it smells like devotion. But gold is not only devotion. Gold is forgery and fire and cold. It is the patience to be less spectacular than you imagined you might be. It is the willingness to lose the thing you most prize if it purifies the other.”

She reached into a drawer and produced a box no bigger than a fist. Inside, on a bed of black cloth, lay a slipper the color of old coins polished by hands that never stopped working. It did not glitter so much as breathe. The cloth around it hummed like a distant bell. Cassandra did not touch it.

“You would think an ancient thing would be merciful,” she murmured. “You would think the old things would reward tenderness because tenderness is pretty. But this slipper recognizes alloy. It knows the difference between gold made of light and gold made of compromise.”

Her smile split more fully now. “Your love is true. It is bright. It comforts me. But it is not pure as gold.”
The statement landed like a verdict, still and absolute. Bannakaffalatta’s shoulders dipped as if a weight had been placed there. Fantine’s hand tightened around the thread so hard the fibers complained.

Cassandra did not lean forward to mock or to pity them. She merely set the box between them and let the silence do what it always does when a truth is spoken: it draws lines in dust. “Only two whose love is unalloyed may receive this slipper,” she said. “Not perfect. Not safe. Not unhurt. Unalloyed. You will not find that in promises you make to one another in the shelter of fear.”

She lifted her head, so that in the lamplight her face became a map of choices. There was gentleness in it and a cruelty that looked like clarity.

“If you wish to try,” Cassandra said, “there are ways. The house keeps tests and the world keeps losses. But do not come here pretending to be gold simply because both of you hope it will keep you from breaking. Purity is not a refuge. It is a demand.”

She replaced the lid of the box with the motion of someone closing a chapter. The slipper lay asleep in its dark. Fantine could feel, suddenly, the precariousness of every thing she had thought she had traded for love. Bannakaffalatta made a small, steadying sound that was almost a vow.

Outside, the bells on the path rang once, as if the house acknowledged that a choice had been given and that choices are the only real time witches like Cassandra respect.

Then, the old hag, Cassandra paused.

“There is still something you have that IS pure…”

“What is it?” Chimed the couple in desperate union, still processing the ancient woman’s examination of their love.

“That Baker lassie… her music. It is so pure of soul. If I could harness some of the energy from just one song…”

Then because Julien baker could teleport, she appeared on the witch-whore-hag’s shoulders, guitar in hand. Everybody started screaming because wtf.

“I heard my name so here I am” Julien stated plainly.

Julien did not seem to notice anyone’s shock. She settled on Cassandra’s shoulder as if it were a chair she had used often in another life. Her presence was small and precise. “I heard my name so here I am,” she said plainly once more, and the plainness made everyone whooped into silence faster than any command.

When she plucked the first note of “Rejoice”. It did not echo. It landed. The room breathed with it. The guitar sounded like a heart unbuttoning. The song was not loud. It did not need to be. It was spare and fragile and it moved like a thing that had been waiting to be found. Julien’s voice was thin and steady and it folded the light in the room into something softer and more honest. The notes cycled through the cottage as if the walls themselves were listening for a confession.

Fantine felt the thread in her palm heat with a tenderness that was almost pain. Memories she had kept locked for cleanliness opened like small doors. She saw Cosette’s smile, the bruise of a winter, the quiet nights on the ship. Every image came washed in the song’s light and left with the residue of truth. Bannakaffalatta stood very still. The bell in his hand sang without being struck. It harmonized with the guitar in a way that made him almost human: a trembling, a recognition that whatever he was could be held in music.

Cassandra closed her eyes and let the sound move through her like a tide. The ancient lines on her face softened as if music could sand them down. Even the slipper seemed to breathe in time. The house gave up seconds and scattered them like coins across the table. For a moment purity was not a law but a weather, and everybody inside it felt rain on their skin.

Julien’s last chord held and then thinned into the quiet that follows honesty. No one moved for a long moment because movement would have been a lie. Cassandra opened her eyes and looked at them with a kind of new calculation. “Music will clear what clings,” she said. “It will show alloy for what it is. But it does not make gold where there is none. It strips, not fills. If you are to be tested, this will make the first cut. It will tell us what you have left to burn away.”

The old bisexual hag handed over the slipper as pure as gold. Not to Fantine, nor to Bannakaffalatta. But she handed it to Julien Baker.

Chapter Text

The ride to First Choice Haircutters in the TARDIS was awkward. Fantine and Bannakaffatta were once more not speaking. Not out of anger. They were simply at a loss for words.

Julien… Why is she so special? After all this, their love was not pure? After all that was sacrificed? What could possibly be more pure than this?

Bannakaffalatta decided it must be simply because of Evil Sun Master Danny. Fantine wasn’t sure.

Bannakaffalatta settled next to Wilf, and Fantine next to Julien.

And then there was the Doctor and Wilf.

Staring at the ground for fear of eye contact. After this next stop, it will all be over. And then what? There is no stronger feeling than anger at a loved one. And Wilf was a loved one for the Doctor. But
did Wilf feel the same?

The Doctor couldn’t get Frosty out of his head. Was the short winter the two shared worth more than all the adventures the Doctor and Wilf had?

No. Stop thinking about this. Focus on winning this battle, then move onto the next.

When the TARDIS landed, it barely made a sound.

The Doctor ran across the floor to the doors, itching to get out of that awkward soup.

The doors opened to reveal a strip mall, almost vacant and smelling ever so slightly like poutine. The first business in view was the hair salon; First Choice Haircutters.

The last item the crew had to collect was the hair as yellow as corn. Fantine had beautiful yellow-blonde hair. The reason for going to the salon was that they didn’t want to butcher Fantine’s beautiful hair with kitchen scissors. It would be simply a crime. 24601 core.

The receptionist greeted the gang with a look more sour than a lemon but extra sour.

“Appointment for- uh… Fantine what’s your last name again?” Asked the Doctor.

Fantine looked at him. “I dont have one. I’m an orphan from revolution era France, remember?”

Bannakaffalatta stepped in. “It’s under my last name, Favor”.

Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, but nobody acknowledged it out loud.

But the doctor had gears turning.

Favor. Like back at Evil Sun Master Danny’s house. Fantine wasn’t the problem. She never was. It was Bannakaffalatta.
He must be out of place. He must be what attracted the chaos. It was why Julien’s music is considered pure, because she has a song called Favor.
And the haircut! Fantine’s story is still playing out, just in different ways. In her original story, she gets her haircut, and that’s when things turn for the worse. She dies very soon after.

The Doctor did not know why Evil Sun Master Danny needed Fantine dead, or why he didn’t tell them Bannakaffalatta was what was disrupting spacetime. But he did know one thing. Fantine cannot get
her hair cut.

“GET THOSE SCISSORS AWAY FROM HER” screamed the Doctor.

But it was too late.

With a snip, a chunk of golden hair fell to the ground.

The hairdresser smiled and turned to Fantine.

“Oh ignore him dear. What lovely locks you’ve got there.”

Chapter Text

The scissors closed with a sound like bones giving up.

A lock of Fantine’s hair, pale as corn and grief, fell to the floor.

The air shattered.

The rooftop caught fire without burning. The sky tore itself into ribbons of orange. And from the sun itself, walking like a man who owned every tragic page ever written, came Danny Gonzalez. Not YouTube Danny. Not even Algorithm Danny.

Evil Sun Master Danny.

He smiled like the apocalypse was a brand deal.
“Finally,” he said, voice carrying the weight of every canon death ever staged.
“Balance restored.”

Fantine staggered, clutching her cropped head. “Why…why does this matter? It’s just hair.”

Danny’s grin sharpened. “Not hair. Catalyst. It always begins here. Misery has choreography. You cut, you fall, you die.”

Bannakaffalatta stepped forward, his chest-light flickering in panic. “You will not touch her.”

Danny turned. His eyes glowed.
“Oh, little red man. Don’t you know? You were always the problem.”

Silence hit like thunder.

“What about the fob watch?” Fantine rasped.

Danny’s voice became honey and venom.
“It was an excuse for you to bring me the items. Fantine was never the glitch. She was my excuse. The truth is simpler: he was designed to die. In the voyage of the damned, your little chrome knight was supposed to burn. That was his purpose. His sacrifice. But I rewrote him. I kept him alive. I made him stumble into your alley. I made him hold your hand.”

“And I knew you would use your own hair. Getting your hair cut is the catalyst of your death. Two birds, one stone.

Fantine’s knees gave out. Bannakaffalatta caught her, trembling.

Danny circled them like a predator at confession.
“Everything you thought was love was my script. And the items your little gang fetched for me? Each one is fuel for FAVOR, my algorithm.

The cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow and corn and the slipper as pure as gold are items that are put together to make a potion that will strengthen the FAVOR algorithm and make it unstoppable.

Every trinket, every token, every word he whispered. All feeding the system that keeps them docile. Gregs, every last one. Worshippers of me.”

From the corner, Laura/Cosette flickered, voice too smooth. “Hi, Mama.”

Danny didn’t even look at her. “As long as you lived, she remembered. Memory breeds resistance. And resistance breaks FAVOR. So I needed you gone. And I needed your little paradox toy, Banna to make it hurt. To make you believe you were the problem.”

Bannakaffalatta clenched his fists. “Don’t call me Banna.”

Fantine clutched Bannakaffalatta’s metal hand like it was the last real thing in a fabricated world.
“You used us,” she whispered. “You built him to betray me.”

Bannakaffalatta’s voice cracked like static. “I… I was made. But what I felt-” He pressed her hand to his chest-light. “This is mine. My love is not his algorithm.”

Danny laughed. The laugh of a man who had replaced God with subscriber count.
“Love? You think love survives code? He was a puppet. You were his stage.”

Fantine, shaking, leaned her forehead to Bannakaffalatta’s cold metal brow. “Then why do I hurt like this? Why does he look at me like I’m more than tragedy? If it’s all fake, why does it feel real?”

Danny opened his mouth to sneer-

-and the Doctor stepped forward.
“Because it is real,” he said, voice trembling with centuries. “You never understood, did you? You control, you rewrite, you erase. But even in the smallest crack, life grows. Even in the darkest night, someone loves. You can’t algorithm that away.”

Danny snarled. “And what about you, Doctor? Still pretending compassion fixes anything? Still clinging to your broken little faith in people?”

The Doctor’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“We’re the last of our kind. We could have been better. I chose hope. You chose control. And that’s why you’ll always be alone.”

The silence burned.

And then-

Footsteps.

Julien Baker slowly walked out of the dark with one guitar. It was so dusty and beaten up, it barely looked playable. She didn’t say anything. She just sat on the floor, legs crossed and poised like a saint and a corpse at once.

She began to play.

Her cracked fingers plucked away at the guitar strings like an angel playing the harp. Everyone was quiet. Not a soul dared to speak.

They had all heard about her song “Favor”, but none had actually heard it. But instinctively, all five members of the audience knew they were about to.

The first notes of Favor cracked the air open.

The sound seemed to bend the air, pull it thin.

“We took the forty down to
Visit the family, and I
Told you, the only kin I knew
Was who I could see from the gurney
I used to think about myself
Like I was a talented liar
Turns out that all my friends were
Trying to do me a favor”

It cut straight into the Master.

Danny’s smile faltered, just slightly. He had built kin out of algorithms, made worshippers out of Gregs, convinced himself that family was control. But the words dragged him backward, to Gallifrey, to the gurney of his own broken mind, to the only real family he had ever had, and how he had spat it away.

The line about friends “trying to do a favor” wasn’t music anymore. It was indictment. It was the Doctor.

Julien did not pause. She moved into the second verse.

“I always want to tell the truth
But it never seems like the right time
To be serious enough
I'm sorry, I'm making myself cry
How long do I have until
I've spent up everyone's goodwill?”

The Doctor flinched, as though the guitar strings were nerves under his skin. He had always wanted to tell the truth, but he never did. Not when it mattered. Not when it would cost him.
He thought of every time he’d chosen cleverness over honesty, every friend he’d outlived without telling them enough.
“How long do I have until I’ve spent up everyone’s goodwill?”
The words hollowed him out. He lowered his gaze, ashamed, and when he lifted it again, Wilf was already looking at him.

The next verse landed.

“Sat on the hood, out all night
Trying to scrape together change
You pulled a moth out from the grill of your truck
Saying "It's a shame"
How come it's so much easier
With anything less than human?
Letting yourself be tender
Well, you couldn't make me do it”

Fantine shivered. The song spoke of coins scraped together in the dark, of tenderness offered only in scraps, and it was her life entire. She had lived in the margins, sustained on scraps of mercy.

She thought of the moth in the lyric, and it was her, a fragile creature caught in the grill of a brutal world, waiting for someone to notice she was alive. Bannakaffalatta had noticed. And suddenly, she understood why her survival could never be canon. It was too merciful.

The guitar grew raw, aching.

“It doesn't feel too bad, but it
Doesn't feel too good either
Just like a nicotine patch, it
Hardly works, then it's over”

Bannakaffalatta’s chest-light flickered weakly. It was his stanza. The sound described his existence: temporary, fragile, not quite human, not quite enough. He was meant to die, and every second after was a patch job, a reprieve that should never have happened.

But inside the patch, inside the failure, he had found love. He turned to Fantine, his voice shaking like static. “I was built to end. But every moment I chose you, that was mine.”

Julien’s voice dropped to a whisper for the last verse.

“Who put me
In your way to find?
What right had you
Not to let me die?
Ooh, but did I even know
What I was asking for?
If I had my way
I'd have missed you more
Than you missed me”

Wilfred covered his mouth with a hand, trying to stop the sob before it came.
“Who put me in your way to find?”
That was his life. He had stumbled into the Doctor’s orbit by accident, and he still didn’t understand why.

He didn’t think he was worth the right to live when others hadn’t. He’d begged to take the Doctor’s place in death. And yet here he was, still alive, still clumsy, still loved. A tear slid down his cheek before he could hide it.

Julien’s hands lingered on the last fragile chords.

“You missed me.
You missed me.”

Laura froze. No- not Laura. Cosette. The words cracked something inside her like porcelain dropped on stone.

”You missed me.”

She remembered her mother’s voice, a voice she wasn’t supposed to have anymore. Danny had scrubbed it out, polished her clean into the empty brightness of an algorithmic child.
But here it was: the ache of recognition. She had missed her mother all her life without knowing she was allowed to.

”You missed me.”

It wasn’t a lyric. It was a haunting. It was Fantine’s absence speaking back into her. She doubled over, hands in her hair, because the love she wasn’t supposed to feel had been returned to her all at once. The Greg-smile cracked, and the girl beneath it began to cry.

Fantine reached for her, short-haired, broken, and alive. And in that moment Cosette knew: she had always been missed. Always been remembered. And nothing Danny could code would ever erase that.

Julien stopped strumming. It was silent. For the first time in a very long time, there was a still moment.

The algorithm screamed. The word FAVOR flickered on the walls in glitching fonts- FAV0R, F@VOR, 𝔉𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯- and then collapsed.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile at Thenardier's Inn...

Valjean was already shaking, sweat rolling down his back, his muscles fighting against the surrender even as his body betrayed him. Every brutal thrust from Javert forced his chest deeper into the mattress, grinding him against the sheets damp with pre-cum smeared from his cock.
His mind spun between shame and hunger- the part of him that had lived decades in restraint howling at the degradation, while another part clung to it, drowning in the release of finally being broken open.

Javert was merciless. His cock slammed into Valjean with animal rhythm, the slick stretch of his hole gripping him so tight he could barely pull back without dragging a groan from both of them. He wanted Valjean ruined, wanted him fucked until every ounce of strength was spent. His grip bruised Valjean’s hips, and still it wasn’t enough. He needed to mark him deeper, to hear the man collapse beneath the weight of him.

Wilson sat at the head of the bed, his thighs taut, cock buried in Valjean’s mouth. He held Valjean’s hair in both fists, forcing him down until the head hit the back of his throat and he gagged, spit bubbling out around the thick length. Wilson’s breath came ragged, torn between awe and lust as he watched the great man, the convict, the saint, on his knees choking around his cock like any other slut.

Valjean’s throat burned, each thrust gagging him, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. He moaned around Wilson’s cock, the vibrations sending shudders up Wilson’s spine. Every sound, every wet choke, every desperate swallow only spurred Wilson to use him harder, hips snapping forward.

The room stank of sex. Sweat, spit, the raw animal musk of bodies grinding together. The slap of Javert’s balls against Valjean’s ass echoed with each thrust, joined by the slick squelch of Wilson’s cock sliding in and out of his throat. Drool poured down his chin, dripping onto Wilson’s lap, and pre-cum dripped steadily from Valjean’s own cock, staining the sheets.

Javert leaned low over him, teeth scraping his shoulder. “Do you feel it, Valjean?” he hissed, voice guttural, half snarl. “Pinned between us. Owned. You’re nothing but a hole for me to fuck.” His hips pistoned harder, cock driving deep until Valjean’s body shuddered and clamped down, wrung raw by the assault.

Valjean’s mind shattered. Every thrust tore him further from himself, every choking gasp erased the man of honor he had built. He was nothing here, nothing but flesh, cock, ass, throat. He hated it. He loved it. His body begged for more even as shame curled like fire in his gut.

Wilson felt him tremble and groaned, his own orgasm close. “Swallow it,” he panted, shoving deeper, holding Valjean’s head down as his cock pulsed. Hot ropes of cum shot into Valjean’s throat, gagging him as Wilson spilled everything he had. Valjean swallowed greedily, desperately, choking but obeying, the taste bitter and thick sliding down his throat.

Javert wasn’t far behind. He rammed in brutally, hips slamming hard until he buried himself balls-deep, cock twitching as he growled into Valjean’s ear. His orgasm tore through him, violent, pumping thick, hot cum deep into Valjean’s ass. He didn’t stop even as his cock spurted the last of it, grinding against Valjean’s sore, stretched hole, filling him until it dripped down his thighs.

Caught between them, Valjean screamed into the mattress, his cock exploding untouched, spraying cum in messy streaks across the sheets. His whole body convulsed, muscles clenching around Javert’s cock, throat still raw from Wilson’s. The humiliation only made it sharper. The filth, the ruin, the disgusting joy of finally giving in.

When it was done, he collapsed, shaking, chest heaving, face smeared with spit and tears. Cum leaked from his mouth, from his ass, soaking the bed beneath him. Javert stayed pressed against his back, panting like a beast, sweat dripping onto his skin. Wilson stroked Valjean’s hair almost tenderly, though his cock still glistened wet from use.

Valjean lay there wrecked, ashamed, and relieved. Ruined, but freer than he had ever been.

Valjean’s body was already wrecked, leaking and trembling, but they gave him no pause. Javert pulled out with a filthy squelch, and before the emptiness even registered, Wilson shoved forward, his cock sliding deep into the stretched, dripping hole. Valjean gasped, a broken sound that ended in a moan, the constant invasion leaving him dizzy.

They fell into rhythm. Javert driving in hard, then withdrawing, Wilson immediately taking his place. The sensation was unbearable: his body clenching, stretched raw, always full, never a second’s relief. It felt as though they were tearing him apart between them, splitting him into nothing but a hole to be used.

Javert’s growl was harsh above him. “You’ll never be empty again, Valjean. One of us will always be inside you.”

Valjean moaned into the sheets, humiliation flooding his chest. His cock smeared pre-cum against his stomach, aching, twitching, begging for release even after everything. He couldn’t fight it- his body betrayed him with every thrust.

Wilson laughed breathlessly, fingers digging into Valjean’s thighs as he slammed forward. “God, look at him. Used up, ruined, and still hungry for more. You love it, don’t you?”

Javert forced his way back in as Wilson withdrew, the back-and-forth driving Valjean’s mind to pieces. He was nothing but a vessel, his ass a slick mess, their cum and spit mixing, dripping with every motion. His voice cracked as he tried to beg, but it only came out as a sob, a moan, another filthy sound.

Pinned between them, his chest ground into the mattress, his neck heavy with Javert’s hand pressing him down, Valjean surrendered completely. His dignity was gone, shattered by the relentless rhythm that left him ruined, constantly filled, constantly taken.

The pace quickened, both of them rutting into him, cursing under their breath, sweat dripping onto his back. The bed creaked violently, the sheets soaked.
Valjean came first- untouched, spraying thick ropes of cum across the sheets, his body convulsing, sobbing as his hole clenched desperately around Wilson, then Javert, then Wilson again.

Wilson groaned, hips jerking, spilling hot inside him before pulling back to let Javert slam in again. Javert growled, pounding mercilessly until his cock pulsed, emptying another load into Valjean’s already ruined hole.

When it was over, Valjean collapsed in the mess, cum leaking out in thick streams, his chest heaving, face wet with spit and tears. His body trembled, wrecked and overflowing, the echo of their rhythm still burning in his muscles. He was emptied of everything but filth and submission.

“We’re going downstairs.” Said Wilson very matter-of-factly.

They barely gave Valjean time to clean himself. His legs shook under him, his thighs sticky with cum, but Javert and Wilson only hauled him upright, one on each arm. He stumbled as they dragged him down the street, his trousers hanging open, shirt clinging damp with sweat. His hole still leaked mess with every step.

The Thenardiers’ inn was smoky and loud, full of drunkards, cheap wine, and bad singing. Perfect. Javert shoved the door open and the room quieted for a heartbeat as the three of them entered. Valjean’s flushed, wrecked state was obvious, his face wet, hair plastered to his forehead, his gait betraying everything.
Thenardier himself barked a laugh from behind the bar.

“Well, well. Looks like Javert finally caught himself a prize. Or is it you who’s caught, eh?”

The crowd snickered. Wilson didn’t hesitate. He ripped the soaked trousers off Jean, and shoved him forward onto a sticky table, forcing him down so his ass was up and spread. The wood was rough against Valjean’s cheek, the smell of stale ale mixing with the filth still dripping out of him.

“Why hide it?” Wilson said, loud enough for the room to hear. “He loves being used. Watch him.”

Wilson spat in his palm and smeared it brutally between Valjean’s cheeks before slamming back inside. The sudden stretch made Valjean choke on a cry, muffled against the table. The inn’s patrons whistled, jeered, egging them on. Some pressed closer for a better look.
Thenardier’s wife cackled. “Go on, make him squeal!”

Valjean’s humiliation burned hotter than anything. Every thrust rocked the table, the eyes of strangers crawling over his exposed, ruined body. His cock rubbed against the filthy wood, leaking helplessly. His chest heaved, shame and arousal twisting together until he didn’t know if he wanted to scream or beg for more.

Javert took his mouth, shoving deep until Valjean gagged, spit streaming down his chin. He held his head in place, making him choke around the length, groaning when Valjean’s throat convulsed. Wilson pounded him from behind, the slap of flesh against flesh echoing through the smoky room.

The audience clapped, cheered, some even chanting his name. Valjean’s whole body burned with disgrace, but his cock throbbed harder, drooling onto the floor. His body betrayed him, loving the filth, the spectacle, the way he was displayed like nothing but a hole to be filled.

Wilson growled into his ear, hand pressing his neck hard against the table, so hard the air couldn’t get through. “Look at them all watching you, Valjean. Do you feel how pathetic you are?”

Javert groaned, shoving deeper into his throat. “They can see you want it. They can see everything.”

The crowd roared again as Valjean convulsed, cumming untouched, spraying across the dirty floorboards while being used like a showpiece. His vision blurred, his body trembling as Wilson spilled hot inside him again, followed by Javert pulling out to smear his load across Valjean’s flushed, tear-streaked face.

When they finally stepped back, Valjean collapsed against the table, body shaking, covered in sweat and filth, his dignity obliterated under the weight of dozens of hungry eyes.

Thenardier grinned wide, raising a mug. “To our entertainment tonight!”

The tavern erupted in laughter and applause, leaving Valjean broken in the center, humiliated and utterly consumed.

Madame Thenardier leaned against the bar, eyes dark with lust, a wicked grin curling her lips. “Well, if you’re all so eager, I suppose I might as well join the fun,” she purred, voice low and teasing. The patrons in the inn erupted into whistles and laughter, thrilled to see the spectacle escalate.

Valjean’s body was trembling, soaked in sweat and cum, cock leaking, hole still overstretched and dripping. Javert pressed him down on the table, hand heavy at the base of his neck, holding him pinned as he thrust inside him. Valjean’s mouth was forced open by Wilson, slick and dripping, gagging slightly as he swallowed every inch.

Madame Thenardier climbed onto the edge of the table, legs straddling Valjean’s waist. He could feel her slick heat pressing against his cock, hands spreading her hips, guiding her down. She gasped at the sensation of being filled by Valjean, and began to bounce up and down.

Javert continued to fuck Valjean’s mouth all the while.

Wilson shifted behind her, sliding his cock deep against her entrance, keeping the rhythm brutal but staggered so the action felt continuous. With Wilson in her ass, and Valjean in her pussy, every push, every thrust, made Madame Thenardier feel as if he were being torn apart and remade at the same time.

“Look at you,” Wilson groaned, holding her tight, thrusting in time with Javert hitting the back of Valjean’s throat. “Taking everything, choking, gagging, dripping, and still begging for more.”

Valjean moaned, drool running down his chin, cum leaking across his stomach. Every inch of him was overstimulated, every nerve raw. He gripped Madame Thenardier’s hips, guiding her down, her body bouncing against him, slick and wet, pressing his cock deep inside her, skin smearing together with sweat and previous mess.

Javert shoved deeper inside him, fingers digging into his neck, marking him as his, while Wilson rammed Madame from behind, balls slapping, sweat and arousal coating both of them. Valjean’s tongue flicked over the length in his mouth, gagging and moaning, every breath a mixture of lust, humiliation, and overstimulation.

“Take it all,” Javert growled, hand still heavy at his neck. “Every inch, every drop.”

Madame Thenardier’s moans were loud and filthy as she bounced harder, riding Valjean while Wilson kept pounding her, hips jerking in messy rhythm. Valjean’s cock twitched violently inside her, leaking pre-cum, his ass still clenching around Javert, mouth gagged around Wilson.

The tavern around them seemed to vanish, the sound of slapping flesh, groans, spit, sweat, and cum drowning everything else.

Wilson’s body convulsed first, cock erupting, cum painting the inside of Madame’s ass and dripping out onto Valjean.

Madame Thenardier gasped and moaned, bouncing faster, slick spilling between her legs, while Wilson groaned, hips jerking, coating her in his cum. Javert followed immediately, shoving deep, pulsing inside Valjean one last time, leaving him trembling, utterly wrecked, soaked in sweat and cum, and coated in the filthy, chaotic aftermath.

Madame Thenardier’s moans rose to a scream, body trembling violently as she finally came. Her slick heat clamped down around Valjean’s cock, her hands gripping his shoulders for balance, hips jerking uncontrollably.

Sweat and cum ran in messy rivers down her thighs and stomach, mixing with the dripping remains of Valjean, Wilson, and Javert’s exertions.

Valjean’s body quaked beneath her, cock pulsing inside her, mouth still full of Wilson, hole clenching tightly around Javert. He gasped and shuddered with her, overwhelmed by the sensation, mind hazy from the overstimulation and filth. Every nerve screamed; every muscle quivered.

Valjean groaned, hips jerking with a shudder, spilling inside her as she rode the crest of her orgasm. Javert followed, pulsing violently inside Valjean one last time, leaving him completely wrecked and dripping with their combined mess.

Monsieur Thenardier, behind the bar, could only gape, jaw dropping. “By all that’s holy…!” he barked, eyes wide as he took in the spectacle. His wife, panting and trembling atop Valjean, smeared and gleaming with sweat and cum, glanced at him with a wicked smirk. “Relax,” she said, voice thick with satisfaction. “I wanted this.”

The inn erupted in shocked laughter and whistles. Patrons leaned closer to catch every filthy detail. The slick mess coating the table, Valjean’s body used and exposed, Madame Thenardier’s shuddering climax, and the commanding presence of Javert and Wilson.

Thenardier muttered something under his breath, half embarrassed, half incredulous, as he poured himself a mug of ale, trying to process the obscene chaos in front of him.

Valjean collapsed, utterly destroyed, dripping cum and sweat, trembling and gasping, coated in every trace of the bodies that had used and been used by him. Madame Thenardier leaned down, pressing her sweaty, slick body against his, panting and smiling. “Good,” she whispered, “that’s exactly how it should feel.”

Chapter Text

Danny suddenly collapsed to the ground. He tried to get up, but he simply could not. 

Then there was a bang, 

A flash,

And next a lightning crash. 

The ground shook and matter seemed to almost fall apart.

It was Cassandra Nogram.

She mischievously smiled, but with an odd warmth.

“Hello Sweetie.”

Danny looked up from the ground, with shock projecting from his pupils.

The Doctor looked up slyly. Danny’s jaw was on the floor.

“Hello River.”

Everything was quiet.

“What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since we broke up.” Yelled Danny.

Cassandra/River rolled her eyes.“Well I’m here to save the day.” 

A warm glow began to faintly appear, seemingly under her skin. Her wrinkles began to melt away, her tangled gray hair turned brown and curly… everything about her was changing.

And sure enough, when the glowing stopped, the woman that was left was professor River Song.

“You boys have been up to trouble. Wandering about, tearing apart canons and timelines. What were you thinking?!”

Fantine was deeply confused. So were Cossette,  Julien, Bannakaffalatta and Wilfred.

“What happened to the old woman?”

She turned to the doctor.

“Who is she?”

“My wife.” Replied the doctor.

River approached Fantine with an unfamiliar softness. 

“My sweet girl.”

Fantine’s eyes began to well up with tears. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was all the stress of everything, but there was something so special about the presence of River Sing. Something shifted the moment she spoke to Fantine. 

“You are so beautiful.” Professor Song began.

“I see why he fell for you”. She motioned towards Bannakaffalatta. 

“You are going to pay for all the hell you’ve put them through” She screamed at no-longer-sun Master Danny.

“River, really-“ the Doctor interrupted.

“Hush, husband.” River snapped.

“Kidnapping and brainwashing Cossette, meshing timelines, causing more chaos than ever. I had to become an old witch for years just to protect the slippers. I placed a spell upon them. That’s why all your power is lost.”

“What?” Asked a very confused Bannakaffalatta.

“Yeah what?” Chimed in Danny.

“Stupid boys. The Doctor sent me a message from my future, your present. So I tracked down the slipper as pure as gold, and placed a spell on them and guarded the for years. The best spell I could find was one that drained all the power from those who last touched it when the most pure and powerful music is played. That’s why you are here in the first place Julien.”

Danny glared at River “You may have stopped my world takeover, but they still can’t be together…”

River ignored this comment. “I spent years mapping out this whole scheme so the master wouldn’t be able to take over the world and turn the all into… what does he call them..? George?”

“GREG! AND YOU WERE TRULY GREG ONCE TOO.”

“Maybe so, but that was a long time ago. I was a different woman then.”

The doctor smiled. Watching the woman he loves deny the man he loves (and that she once loved) turned him on.

“Fantine, you won’t remember this, but when you were a baby, someone put a 

River Song turned to Bannakaffalatta and Fantine, who were now in each other’s arms. 

“You are now free to be together.”

Fantine and Bannakaffalatta kissed in their embrace. Cossette ran towards her mother and hugged her. Everyone erupted in tears and cheers. Everyone except Danny. He stood up.

“You aren’t listening to me.”

The gang stopped and looked at him.

“Their timelines have already meshed. Haha I had the FAVOR algorithm on long enough to do that haha. However, they love eachother so much, that their lives and souls have also meshed.”

“So..?” Asked a very tired Wilf.

“SO. Together, they now exist in one storyline. SO hey still owe their canon 1 life. SO one of them still needs to die.”

The thunder returned. The ground tumbled and the sky began to crack.

“Everyone in this universe is dead, unless one of you two dies. And something tells me you don’t have much time to decide.”

“Oh God..” Croaked Wilf.

Julien began to sing.

River and the Doctor just stared at the sky.

Then, the Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed, and he inhaled deeply.

“No. Not them. If a life is owed, nobody here deserves to die. Nobody except you.”

“Excuse me?” Danny replied sassily.

The Doctor continued. “You meshed their timelines. You being alive could just as well be causing problems. You wrecked so many timelines, so many LIVES. One of them dying won’t stop this universe from being torn apart. You just want us all to die to prove that this all wasn’t for nothing. No. The only person that can fix this is you. The only person who needs to die… is you, Danny.”

Master Danny approached the Doctor.

“Fine. But I since I created the meshing of timelines, I can survive it too. The only way I can though, is if I’m the only one left alive by the time the universe starts falling apart.”

“That’s true.” The Doctor informed the others.

“Of course, if the person who meshed the timeline dies, the universe, everything and everyone remains intact. However, If the one who meshed the timelines is the only person left who is from outside the timeline, they will survive. But if they aren’t, then the one who meshed the timeline AND everyone else dies.”

Master Danny grew bored during the explaination.

He began to smile and laugh manaically.

And then he pulled out a gun.

“And seeing as I’m the only one with a weapon here, I think I’ll be the one to make it out of here.”

Danny raised the gun and pointed it as Fantine. Cossette began to cry.

“I think I’ll start with you.”

The gunshot rang m.

Without hesitation, Bannakaffalatta jumped in front of Fantine. He was made of bullet reflective metal.

The bullet bounced off of him and hit Evil Master Danny in the head, killing him instantly. No way to regenerate.

“NO-“ screamed the Doctor. River song comforted him. But Bannakaffalatta remained on the ground, trembling.

Fantine knelt down. 

“My love, you saved my life… thank you. How did you know you would survive that?”

Bannakaffalatta smiled. “Bannakaffalatta loves you so much…” he said weakly.

Fantine realized that his act was not only protection, but also sacrifice. Tears began to stream down her face

“No- no. You can’t- you can’t just leave me. Not after all this. Bannakaffalatta please don’t go.”

“Pretty girl…”

Everyone surrounded Bannakaffalatta at this point. Fantine continued to weep over him. 

“Did good?” Bannakaffalatta asked, so genuinely that it hurt Fantine to hear.

“You did so much more than good.” Fantine replied through tears.

“Bannakaffalatta happy.” 

And then his breathing stopped.

Fantine shrieked. The others looked at the ground in defeat and grief. 

They stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. Until finally the Doctor spoke.

“Let’s go home.”

And so they did.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.

Here it was they lit the flame.

Here they sang about 'tomorrow'

And tomorrow never came.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will sing no more.

Chapter Text

It may be the end of this story, but fear not. The first chapter of That Magical Winter, will be published within the month.

It is a prequel to The Damned Voyage of Fantine and Bannakaffalatta, and explores the winter that Frosty and Wilfred shared.

Stay tuned!

-Sophia