All the cool kids are doing it--

[cherry]

-- and some of my stories have pretty nebulous endings, so:

Ask me what happens (or tell me what you think happens) at the end of one of my stories.

Alternate link: The good recent stuff not posted to flashfictions is tagged here, and ds_flashfiction things are schwacked in here.

There are so many people I plan to ask this of...


Also: Yes, the icon is of me. *G* It's all sneaky-ish and enigmatic.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

So what were you intending to do at the end of Frame by Frame?

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Suuure. Why don't you just go and pick the one I've considered writing a sequel to?

So, Kaylee packs her things, and off they go (before she leaves, they string up the mess with lights and Zoe makes soup and Jayne does his best to make brownies with things he pilfered from the TARDIS kitchen; Mal is stoic and hugs her too hard and Inara tries to pretend her mascara is smudged from wear).

The first time they spin off into time, Kaylee's head feels like it's full to exploding -- like she can feel the world around her stop and twist in upon itself, time spin and shatter. When it stops, when she come back to herself, Jack has a friendly arm slung around Rose and they are laughing, and the Doctor is watching her.

They stop here and there (almost frantically, Kaylee thinks, like the Doctor is trying to take her mind from what she's lost, what he's cost her) see such marvelous, wonderful things -- Rose is wide-eyed with wonder at everything and Jack lives each moment. The Doctor takes her hand and drags her after him, and it takes her a while to realize that she's not remembering things in their correct order, that sometimes when she wanders through the corridors of the TARDIS, she come out sometime other than when she left.

(You have to find your own timeline and hold on, the Doctor says. Practice -- practice and time. If there's one thing we have enough of, it's time.)

Rose is nice, and seems to think that she and Kaylee are some sort of default team, based on age and gender. She keeps showing up in Kaylee's room with polish and magazines, and Kaylee let Rose paint her nails and prattle on about fashion and all the things she's seen since she left, pretends she doesn't hear the dip is Rose's voice when she mentions her mother or Mickey.

Rose, Rose is nice, but Kaylee doesn't really understand her. She seems to Kaylee like she has little pieces of Simon and Inara under her skin -- core planet mentality, soft hands and no scars to be seen. Core planet mentality, but no idea as to the sort of life other people have lived, hard lives as an exception. She's never been shot, never pulled a plow, never left home knowing that most likely she'd never go back. (Three months after Kaylee joined Serenity, her planet was put under quaruntine. Her father sat on the town council -- he knew it was coming when he told her to go.)

Jack is all easy smiles and open flirtation. He makes her laugh, and it's easy for her to work side by side on the TARDIS with him, tossing tools back and forth almost before the other has a chance to ask.

She can't sleep some nights, gets up and pads around the TARDIS only to find him opening panels and poking at wires. There are still nightmares in his eyes. (What are you afraid of? she asks him, once. -- The things I can't remember, he tells her.)

Jack is aware that he is attractive. She just wishes he knew how beautiful he is.

The Doctor watches her sometimes. She can feel him, and sometimes when she turns to him he's wearing a different face. She thinks it must be hard, all of those years and all of those people living in the same skin. He seems full to bursting, too full of old guilts, larger guilts to swallow her pain.

Wake up, he told her, and she feels it now. Waking inch by inch, time stripping away from her form until she is almost free from its ties.

They are sitting at the kitchen table one day (just she and the Doctor, drinking tea) when she realizes she is humming. That they are both humming.

The TARDIS sings sometimes, a melody outside of time and space, and they are with her, singing her song.

Yes, Kaylee thinks, eyes closed and melody running through her mind.

When she opens her eyes, she is smiling and she can see.