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Harold

Bruce responds to the text messages that make it through to him, but he does it cautiously. They consistently prove useful, helpful and legitimate. He doesn't trust them because the tips themselves - not knowing who they're from, and the fact that they are being sent to him - are a red flag.

He is altogether too smart for that not to feel like someone's trying to lure him in.

Lack of complacency doesn't stop curiosity, though - it does the opposite, really.

So he keeps responding, putting out fires as he finds them, but he also starts digging.

What he finds is an abandoned library owned by... multiple shell companies.

It definitely feels an attempt to lure him in.

He's still curious, though, and he has an address.

He parks under a street light, half sits and half leans against the car of the dark bentley to wait. He looks for all the world like he's made himself bait in his own trap. If he were setting a trap for being mugged. ...He's not. Probably. Much.

Entry tags:

barge!verse

Open to All TLV style post

[Network; Video]

[A young man with violet-blue eyes, blue-black hair tucked away in a bun, dressed in green tabards with orange embroidery in somewhat organic patterns, over indigo tunics appears on the network. He solemnly tucks his hands into his sleeves, and bows toward the screen.]

Hello, Barge. My name is Ezra Bridger, and I recently arrived, as a warden. [A tiny pause, and only the momentary effort to put up a smooth, diplomatic front keeps him to wrinkling his nose a little, but one might perceive the hint of trepidation in his tone.] I haven't accepted a deal. At least not yet.

[He shakes his head slightly] Because I know there might be some here who at least know stories, I guess I should say that I am a Jedi Knight. Born at the same time as the rise of the Empire, on a planet named Lothal. I'm happy to answer any question anyone may have about that.[Some of the formality and calm even to his tone begins to fade.] But I haven't been in my home galaxy since I was 18, over three years ago, for me now.

I've traveled through several - I've taken to calling them nexuses? Experienced things rather like the floods and breaches, here, among other...well the last place I was called them Trials.

[His expression suddenly blossoms into a full, bright smile, as something occurs to him.] Oh! Are there any people here who do Jewish observances? I grew up Reform, in a life; I like to keep up with holidays when I can.

[A little more soberly-] And how well is the infirmary staffed? I have some medical training. Including mental health topics.
***
[Action]

DECK - Anyone who knows anything about the Jedi won't be surprised to find him folded into crossed legged sitting on the floor of the deck, hands in green cloth gloves on his knees but palm up, and eyes closed, in meditation. Any psychic, or the like, may notice that his mind is open, yet attentive, letting everything he senses flow around and through him.

Although - If someone's attention lingers on him for long, or he picks up a sense of urgency, he murmurs, without opening his eyes, yet, "Can I help you?"

OR

ENCLOSURE - Of course there's also lightsaber practice in the Enclosure, in varying landscapes, on different days, with his green blade. Anyone who knows much about Jedi lightsaber forms might notice Ezra's personal style is a core of Form III, with some Form IV, and Form I - in other words, a mostly defensive style. Anyone very familiar with the styles of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, or Ahsoka Tano might spot some specific influences.

two of them

As happy as Hera was to see him again, she wasn't too happy to hear they had to do this all over again for Sabine and Ahsoka. It'll be easier this time, Ezra had assured her, since they knew where they were. Although they were still in another galaxy that required either a secret map or trusting purrgil entirely, but... it shouldn't take them ten years! He wouldn't let it.

Sabine and Ahsoka had sacrificed a lot for him, and he needed to return the favor. For starters, he's taking care of Sabine's cat. The little guy was surprisingly domesticated for a loth-cat, and he wonders if Sabine had opened herself up to the Force early on, in that one small way.

It's strange, sitting here in the old tower that both feels like his and somehow not his at all anymore. He had spent more time with the Noti than he did here. Sabine had made it her own too, but all the changes were welcome since it was now better suited for an adult living there and not some teenager just trying to get by.

He'd make sure she was able to come home too. And Ahsoka! They'd all be together again. Sooner, rather than later, he hoped.

More than hoping, he realizes he could actually try doing something about it.

Ezra plops down onto the ground, and the cat follows and likewise plops into his lap. Not the ideal meditating position, but... not the worst either. This is Sabine's cat, after all! It could help connect to her? Maybe?

He sighs and closes his eyes, breathing in and out as he feels his connection to the planet beneath him. Hopefully he can still feel a connection to Peridea too, even this far away. After a while, he does feel something and he reaches out, trying to make the connection more stable.

Except when he opens his eyes, he's staring at himself. Younger, but that's definitely him.

"Uh... hello..."

He has no idea what's happening.

For fadedfool

Ezra hadn't known what to expect, when he's stepped through the portal, but landing face first in a desert would not have been even close to his first guess. On the other hand, this is a desert he knows - or at least as much as one could, having stumbled around nearly blindly and nearly died. But he'd bet his helmet collection that this is Tatooine.

He had even thought he'd heard Master Kenobi's voice, as he'd fallen through whatever that in between place had been. Many other voices, familiar and not, had reverberated, but Master Kenobi is the voice he'd placed first.

Now he's plodding through the desert, possibly even less equipped for it than he'd been the first time around, sweltering in storm trooper armor; he's pretty sure he remembers from his brief undercover stints Imps talking up how versatile stormtrooper equipment is supposed to be, but that is clearly exaggerated propaganda.

And a lone stormtrooper, on this planet, is much more likely to be a target than not, come to think of it. He loathes leaving anything behind, now that he's on his own without many resources, but not overheating takes higher priority. Keep the boots, and under layer, leave the rest, he decides.

Then see how far he can get. Surely the Force didn't bring him this far, just to die.

For unjedi

[It doesn't take long for wide eyed hope to begin to fade into guilty exhaustion. He feels like he's been barely able to stop since....since Kanan died. No, before that.

And maybe that does make the results of reaching so far into the Force, so worn and unbalanced, his fault. ]

I'd hoped for...a connection or guidance, not-

[He gestures towards Ahsoka and around.]

For Ezra

The two moons hung like sickles in the sky, offering little extra light over the grasslands occasionally studded with rocky outcroppings or single trees marking the land. It was a warm, muggy night that promised rain to come eventually, but not yet, not until the thick air had a chance to settle on the land like a blanket. On a night like this, the majority of the splinter tribe was mewed up in the caves, with only a single sentry, one with a strong talent for Sending patrolling the edge of their territory for signs of trouble.

And of the splinter tribe, the strongest Sender was Moonshade. Lifemate and lovemate of Strongbow, she had picked up some of his skill over the centuries, though right now the only one she is in active communion with is the wolf she rides, brown-furred and as alert as she is.

For Ben

Leia, stares up, eyes wide but otherwise holding herself very still, tension and uncertainty pouring off of her.

"...You're really staying?" she checks, not quite willing to let herself believe it, yet.

For Luke

After so long in hiding, it felt strange for Ezra, to be in the middle of the bulk of the Rebel fleet once again. To be fair, the fleet was also much bigger now.

He'd gotten in touch with Hera years ago, but the encrypted comlink he had to reach her was carefully protected and rarely used, even though he never stopped missing her dearly.

She hadn't seemed surprised when he called her so quickly after the defeat of the second Death Star. Hadn't even asked him to explain when he said he needed to get to Endor as quickly as possible. Barely a day later, and he was on a shuttle headed down to where the ground forces remained on the moon. It's Leia who meets him at the landing.

"When General Syndulla said - I wasn't sure whether to believe it," Leia says staring. "Ezra, after I'd heard you and Kanan Jarrus were lost in the liberation of Lothal. I thought you were dead!"

Ezra's shoulders twitch and he gives her a sad smile. "Kanan did die. I was just...like you said, lost for a while." He takes a deep breath. "I'm here to see Luke Skywalker. Master Kenobi sent me."

Leia blinks. "General Kenobi died nearly 5 years, I know for a fact. I saw Vader strike him down, with my own eyes."

Ezra nods. "I know he's dead. He still came and told me this is where I was needed."

She goes still a long moment. "....Yes. Alright. Luke's-" She cuts herself off, looking worried. "Vader and the Emperor had him for a while. I'm still not entirely sure what happened."

He gives her another faint smile. "Me either. But we'll help as best we can. Right?"

That's good enough for Leia. So she leads him towards where she can sense her brother is hiding, as best he can, when so many of Luke's friends aren't willing to let him out of sight for long.

(no subject)

Ok, maybe stowing away hadn't been his best idea ever. Ezra hadn't really realized how long a trip in space took. He was good at hiding and being still, but usually when he had to hide anyone who was around moved on in with the span of an hour or two. He's been quietly curled up in the vents of the ship now, for longer than that.

Now Ezra was hungry. Hunger he could ignore for a good long while, he knew from experience. Thirsty was harder.

How carefully did people on spaceships monitor their water, anyway? It's less likely to be immediately noticed as missing than food, right? Over the course of another half an hour or so, he talks himself into trying to slip around the ship and see if he can find whatever passes for a faucet.

He's careful and quiet - he knows he hasn't made hardly any noise but, still, the hair on the back of his neck stands up, the way it sometimes does right before he's spotted. He quickly presses himself back around a corner against the wall, hoping he'd been fast enough to not actually be seen.

Except...maybe actually being seen doesn't matter. After all, there's a reason he stowed away on this particular ship, after over a year of not even thinking of leaving Lothal.

The pilot of this ship was like him, somehow. Could do things Ezra wanted to know how to do.

(no subject)

( Death )

( Arrival )

(no subject)

Getting away from Thrawn and the remnant of the Seventh Fleet had taken more time and effort than Ezra liked.

But they didn't outright kill him, which was a pleasant surprise.

Strangely, it doesn't take nearly as much time with his 'borrowed' shuttle, to find some ruins that remind him a little of the temple on Lothal. He's not entirely convinced this place was originally built by Jedi, but it doesn't quite feel like the Sith temple on Malachor, either. Still the Force is...heavy, here.

His foot slips in a stone corridor lit by the light from his small kit, and he falls.

He's not sure how long he falls.

But eventually he's picking himself up off dusty ground, squinting at a lot more light. And a person. A woman?

"Hi," he croaks.

Entry tags:

marooned!verse

For Twelve

Ezra's not panicking. He's not. There'd be no point to it. And if Grand Admiral Thrawn had actually wanted him dead, he'd be dead. So, either Thrawn will be back, or the Admiral was fairly confident someone else would be along to scoop Ezra up. He's fairly certain Thrawn's actual plan was to find to try to find a better way to hold a Jedi, and dumping Ezra onto a semi- hospitable but otherwise uncolonized world was the interim plan.

But the meager supplies Ezra had been left with are beginning to get low, even supplemented by gathering from the local flora. Maybe he should branch out into hunting or trapping some of the local fauna.

He's a little uncomfortable with that thought, though. After all, he's kind of made friends with some of the animals around. And if he did kill anything that up close, well. He'd feel it. It's one thing to kill when his life is in immediate danger, or even for the larger mission. If he can survive on plants does he have the right to kill something just for meat?

Funny how he never thought about that before, when food came from other people.

He'd feel better if he really had any idea how from Lothal they'd come out of hyperspace. He believes, completely, that eventually Sabine and maybe the rest of the crew of the Ghost will come looking for him. Whether they actually have any hope of finding him, is a separate question.

He's attempting to meditate on that question, and see if he can get any hints from the Force on where he is relative to home, when he hears...something. It's not the start of a vision, it does feel like. But it's something, not very far away.

He gets to his feet to start moving through the brush in that direction. Both the feeling that comes across as 'sound' in the Force and something he's actually hearing get louder.

Eventually he comes across something he knows wasn't there yesterday. A blue...box?

Entry tags:

timey wimey in a gffa

For the Seventh Doctor

Standing in the predawn fog, looking across the flat space of barren land in the middle of the plain, it's almost as if the Temple had never been there at all.

Except there is....something. Something he can feel more and more, and even hear - a strange groaning sound.

"Do you hear that?" he says, over his shoulder, but honestly he doesn't expect any sort of confirmation from the rest of the Ghost crew. He's gotten used to seeing and hearing things none of them do (except for Kanan, sometimes, and he's well and truly gone now).

He picks up speed as he moves through the fog towards the sound.

"Ezra, where are you going?" Hera calls out urgently behind him. And then Sabine, echoes her, even more urgently. "Ezra!"

He breaks into a run -

And just barely manages to break his stride before he hits a closed door in front of him. He takes a step back.

It's a blue box. The size of a small escape pod, maybe, except it looks like it's made of wood. He lays a hand against the door, reaching out with his senses.

It's definitely where that heavy, warm, bright feeling is coming from. Or from behind it, maybe.

(no subject)

He's been on something of a mission, since the sun rose on Darillium and he left it behind.

The Doctor would never call it that. It's certainly not formal, and it's barely structured. But he he's quite relentlessly revisiting his past adventures, triumphs and failures and everything in between.

It's not the first time he's done it; really, he's been a little better at that, in his last couple of lives. This time, though, it's different; this time it's a driving focus, never wavering, on potentially unfinished business; on reuniting with friends he didn't fail and avenging those he did. This time it's a distraction from everything he can't afford to change.

This time, it's pulling at the scar tissue around the hole in his mind.

He's still managed to avoid UNIT, so far. (They'll know. They'll ask how he's doing. They'll say how sorry they are.) Even now, he aims for a time when the headquarters beneath the Tower will be empty.

The last time he was here, he fought the Splinters, driving the majority of them back through Paul's reality gate, into the Void. They'd promised retribution for that, and the one trapped in the Rassilon Cube has been increasingly excitable lately. It's tucked beneath his console as he materialises where the gate used to be.

He knew going in it was some kind of trap; he didn't know it would go wrong so fast. One moment he's poked his head out the door to wave his sonic screwdriver around; the next he's thrust back inside as the TARDIS dematerialises of her own accord. Shock and panic flood his mind, and it's all he can do to soothe her as reality shrieks and tears around them.

He clings to the railing as they soar through - it must be the Void between universes, that's not good - and by the time he slips and staggers to the console they're already crashing. With his mind wide open and his hands flying over the controls he manages to avoid terminal damage, but he can't halt or redirect, can't even predict how bad the impact will be.

When it finally comes, he's thrown from the console, landing right on his back and giving his head a nasty knock. The lights flicker and dim, smoke fills the air, and he barely manages to push himself up in time to throw open the doors and gasp for air. In the back of his mind he registers that he's still in London, that it's daylight now, that there are witnesses, but for the moment all he can do is cough his lungs out and try to stop his vision from swimming so much.

the next spark of light in the dark / keep on moving / don't look back

The memory of something that never happened.

The Doctor had spent three months in 1965 searching dictionaries for a word he was certain existed. He'd been thrown out of a lot of libraries. He'd tried to explain to one reference librarian that it didn't matter, that he would still be looking long after the library had forgotten this moment. He'd felt badly about that, she'd gotten him a cup of tea even as obviously unnerved by the fit of laughter that had interrupted his argument. For a time after that, he'd tried to be the sort of person who liked librarians, and not the sort who was escorted out for sharing fascinating pieces of information at a volume that bothered other patrons. The arguments that visitors to a library should be interested in learning what they could had started new arguments. Under a sky far from Earth, unbound by what year it had been on the calendar the day before, free to go anywhere he wants, the Doctor feels a little embarrassed about the whole thing. It's better to keep those memories tucked away, however more empty spaces that leaves.

He'd been right, about the word. He knows he was - is. He hasn't found it yet, can't remember what language it's from, but it doesn't worry him any more. The universe is a very large place. He'll come across it eventually, or he'll find something even more interesting. There's always something new, just he'd known there was. Known that he belonged out here, where the exact details of 'here' don't matter much. Many of the weights he'd gathered over his century on Earth have turned out not to matter as much now he's left it behind.

Still, there are moments when the old feeling of something on the edge of his mind, lost, itches. The Doctor had never been to this market, couldn't say why he took what he did. He remembers that they're important, that they'll fix the problem with the TARDIS' screen, but it's hard to hope it's a flash of memory returning when it's not his hands he can see working when he closes his eyes. He wonders if it might be the TARDIS, the connection between them that he can feel letting her direct his hands. But that doesn't feel quite right - his luck with repairs argues against it.

Maybe he could ask Fitz. He suspects Fitz knows more than he says, but he's never tried to question him. On a day like this, when everything has gone so well, it's easy to tell himself that it's just because he doesn't want Fitz to get that worried look he tries to hide every time he's reminded that as much as the Doctor remembers about the universe (which sometimes feels like everything, he surprises himself with some of the information that comes out when he's not thinking about it), there are things he doesn't know about his own home. It's too nice a day to think anything else.

It's also far too nice a day to return from shopping to find a stranger looking far too interested in his home. People don't notice the TARDIS. That's something he's grown sure of over the years. This man does, and that sets off a feeling of unease the Doctor wasn't even aware he had. He moves closer, glad that he'd given up whistling once he'd lost track of the song, weighing the bag of tools in one hand.

But if you try to go alone, don't think I'll understand

[an alt!Barge starter for Scott and/or Koschei]

It's not Amata's fault that Bianca doesn't find her soothing. Indeed, she's done her genuine best not to show her increasing unsettlement, feeling certain that when they meet again, the barge will have fixed her and she won't be subject to irrational urges to stab perfectly nice aristocratic young women for no good reason.

Nevertheless, by the time the flood's over, the sustained effort of not stabbing anyone has become distinctly wearing. She doesn't wait in Koschei's room or anything obviously clingy like that. Instead, she gets herself let into the Lounge and gets immoderately drunk while she waits for the little tickle in her mind that signals the presence of her warden.

Soundtrack

Music of the Spheres

Officially, Fitz is a UNIT consultant. It's what's on the badge they gave him after the rounds of questioning he''d been subject to when he'd managed to hunt them down though the tried and tested method of wandering into dangerous areas. They hadn't been very happy about that, but he hadn't been happy at finding himself in an unfamiliar timeline. He likes to share out confusion, even if he probably shouldn't be quite so nonchalant about confusing armed UNIT soldiers. On the other hand, he thinks that probably helped convince them that he had really traveled with the Doctor.

When all was said and done, they had been left with a man out of time and place (not that they know quite how far out of place, he didn't need to learn the concept of 'need to know' from the army). A man with far more knowledge and experience with aliens than anyone else currently on staff, and who knew how to hint - bluff - about the dangers of trying to make him disappear. So they'd given him a job.

Fitz likes to think that they're even more displeased about that than he is.

In practice, Fitz has a badge, a phone, and a strict set of instructions about alerting them to any threat. He considers the last more of a guideline. After all, he's sure his 'colleagues' don't want him hanging around, and he doesn't have much useful advice, not the type they want to listen to. It might not be a lot, but its more than he'd had when he'd first found himself here. It's enough that he might be able to build some sort of life. Though he can't bring himself to think too much about that, it circles back too easily on everything he lost. It's better to keep busy. It's also proving pretty easy to keep busy.

Fitz might not be offer more than a shrug and 'maybe it's alien, or one of those blue tooth things' when in a lab, but he makes up for that with years of practical experience. UNIT has impressive technology (probably, he can admit his standards are warped in that area), but he can pick up hints of something... odd just by flicking through newspapers.

Which is why he's lounging against the wall of this particular pub, smoking a cigarette and listening with apparently casual interest to a few students argue about whether there had really been any strange lights recently.

He can always call UNIT if he finds something more than gut instinct. If it's necessary.

Today Could Last Another Million Years (for Missy)

The worst part is that she has to watch it happen again.

It's not the first time, but this time it's real. And she has to get the timing right, so she sits in the cloaked bus and grits her teeth and counts the seconds, because she's here to get Missy away, but she loves her too much to interfere before she gets the last word in.

She cracks her knuckles, shifts silently ten minutes backwards, and begins counting the seconds. There are three heartbeats between the moment Missy speaks her last words and the blond bonkers one fires at her, but Iris can do a lot in three heartbeats when no one's expecting her.

It's a perfect flying tackle. She appears out of literally nowhere, firing her staser at the Master as she goes, and flattens Missy to the synthetic forest floor as the laser scorches the feather off the top of Iris' hat.

"Before you stab me and all, just take this, would you?"

By "this" she means roughly a year's worth of memories, rolled into a ball and delivered, directly and forcefully, together with the knowledge that Iris will happily take a stabbing if Missy finds it necessary.

"...and that bit was your idea. By the way."

Soundtrack

VIP Flood for Bianca (but open)

[Amata takes a few minutes to digest the Barge Facts 101 the Admiral seems to have helpfully dumped into her head. Fortunately, while no telepath herself, she's no stranger to telepathy, or transdimensional ships, although the Barge may actually top the TARDIS for strange and fantastic.

She looks around the suite she arrived in, without poking around, even though she knows that if this is indeed Koschei's quarters, he'd shrug and say she'd be within her rights to do so.

Then she flips on the communicator. People from all over the cosmos all on one ship, huh? No way she's wasting much time making her presence known. If Koschei is remotely typical for the passengers, the next few days will be far from boring.]

Hello, Barge. I'm one of the guests for this flood. My name is Amata, and I'm human, but not Earth born and raised. I'm originally from a pretty backwater colony called Kaitos, late 34th century. The last few years I've been traveling, mostly, some of it time travel. As far as Earth goes, early 21st century is the era I've spent the most time in. [There's no accounting for the taste of renegade Time Lords, as favorite time periods go, apparently, but she elects not to say that out loud.]

How are all of you this morning?

***

Amata is cheerfully wandering around everywhere on the ship she can reach that isn't obviously private quarters, and not shying from making use of Koschei's warden item (21st-century British passport, really, Koschei? See above: no accounting for taste). She'll talk to anyone who seems to welcome company, with open curiosity and warmth. Perhaps notably, once she works out what the Enclosure does, she's not very interested in it for itself, although she doesn't mind accompanying people who want to make use of it.

For Bianca just post pairing

Koschei was aware of Bianca's presence on the Barge. Of course he was. He tries to keep track of the coming and going of the Barge residents in general, and the arrival of a new Time Lady was impossible to miss.

For all that he's wary of people who know his past turning up and making assumptions about his current sanity and motivations, not knowing anything about a fellow Time Lord onboard is its own kind of unnerving. His short-term tactic is keeping his distance and observing. If she works out who he is, and cares to express an opinion, well, he'll deal with that when it comes up.

He certainly wasn't expecting Bianca to be paired so quickly - much less to him. What the fuck was the Admiral up to?

A couple of hours after the announcement from the Admiral he sends her a text, because he's settled on that being his preferred one-on-one when not face-to-face communication method on board:

I hope you've had a chance to check network announcements.

I'd like to meet and discuss our assignment. I leave the venue to one of your choosing.

Business like and to the point. One might even say cold, but not because he isn't committed to the job. Quite the opposite.