Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Omens ❯ One-Shot

“Omens”
By Viridian5
9/16/08

RATING: PG; Crawford/Schuldig. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by.
SPOILERS: Weiß Kreuz: spoilers for “Mission 25: Ende des Weiss-- To the Knights” and vague ones for Side B.
Doctor Who: small spoilers for “The Face of Evil,” “Rose,” “Aliens of London,” and series 3.
SUMMARY: Schuldig reunites with someone from his past and changes his future.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things Weiß Kreuz belong to Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiß, Polygram k.k., and Animate Film. Anything Doctor Who belongs to BBC Enterprises Ltd. No infringement intended.
NOTES: My inspiration came from the tenth Doctor’s “Aw, I wanted to be ginger! I've never been ginger!”
The uploading interface wouldn't let me enter this story with an anime and non-anime series at the same time, so I put this in Weiß Kreuz alone. Thanks to Syvia, Lieke, and Bardsley for pre-reading.

==================
“Omens”
By Viridian5
==================

After a really long week of rain, the sun had finally come out so Schuldig went outside to sit and bask in the light and other people’s light-related good moods. He’d just finished his book when he felt a really distinctive mind suddenly show up in the general area. His telepathy instinctively shied away from trying to read someone that alien and overstuffed with memories but still read the signature. That mind felt much bigger and fuller than the last time they’d met years ago, but how many Anglophile Time Lords could there be visiting London?

If this appearance followed suit with the last recent ones, something big and messy would soon occur. Those last, recent times Schuldig had been with Brad, but this time he could seek the Doctor out and possibly get in on the ground floor of whatever invasion or insanity came next. Mayhem!

Brad didn’t have to know, and if Brad had foreseen it he’d already be here stopping Schuldig anyway.

Or not. Brad had been interested when Schuldig had told him about the Doctor popping in and out of the area. Knowledge was power.

What the hell? That didn’t look anything like the Doctor, but signatures didn’t lie. Was it a mind trick that made him look so different, a... hologram, what? Only one thing for it; Schuldig would have to interact with him to see for sure. “Hey!”

The guy who might be the Doctor looked at him then showed a small spark of recognition. Well, it had been ages, maybe even more than that for a time traveler. “Yeah?”

“It’s Schuldig.” That got more of a look of recognition. Even in a long life, how many Schuldigs could a guy meet? Schuldig turned the friendliness on full blast, like last time. “You look so different! Hotter. I like the leather jacket. I miss the scarf, though.”

The Doctor relaxed a bit more. “The scarf had its pros and cons.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Most people don’t take the change in appearance so easily.”

Although Schuldig couldn’t be certain without a deeper scan he wasn’t willing to do in this case, this guy felt like the Doctor. Telepaths didn’t put as much faith in appearances.

The Doctor also felt like a textbook case of post-traumatic stress disorder to Schuldig, but he wouldn’t ask about it because people rarely gave you an honest answer about that kind of thing. Did time traveling do that? Schuldig had wondered what it would be like to travel across time and space and meddle in the lives of everyone he met while doing it.

“I’m not most people.”

The Doctor seemed amused by him. “Really.”

“Really. It’s been years since I last saw you.”

“More than that for me.”

“Did you look like this the other times you were here recently?”

“You were aware of that?”

With the Doctor seeming more reticent as this new self, Schuldig set himself up to be the social lubricant. “Hell yeah. But then there were mannequins coming to life or alien spacecrafts smacking Big Ben, and I was too busy to look you up. I assume you helped fix those.”

“Of course.”

Of course. “We could have used your help against Bob.”

“‘Bob’?”

“Short for ‘thingamabob,’ the Eszett Elders’ demon-god whatever-the-hell. If you’d been here you’d probably tell us it was actually an alien.”

“Could be.”

“We wanted a name for it that we could use amongst ourselves without people catching on, something short and innocuous. Besides, Bob was a demon on _Twin Peaks_. Pity me, dealing with Brad’s bouts of American culture.”

“So, possibly alien demon-god.”

“That the Elders wanted to call up so they’d be immortal and rule the world with an iron fist or tentacle.”

“The world isn’t ruled by them, so I would think you did fine on your own.”

“We had help from some florist-assassins. Don’t ask... though some of them are in town. But, hey, we’re free now!”

“What have you been up to?”

“Being a bad example for gingers everywhere, mostly. Brad and I are still working. You’re so lucky meeting you that time sent him into vision overload, because if he’d been fine the three of us would never have been allowed to help you, let alone for free. He was helpless for two days afterward, and I could decide how much or little I wanted to nurse him.... That was priceless! He made me pay for it later, though. Nagi is grown up--as tall as he could grow anyway--and working in Japan. What happened to leather girl... Leela?” When the Doctor’s eyes took on a sad look, Schuldig asked, “How did she leave you?”

His voice sounded thick. “Found someone she wanted to settle down with.”

“That’s funny. Our knife-wielding psycho did the same. I guess it’s always the ones you don’t expect.” Schuldig got the impression that he shouldn’t ask more about her. “But you’re not alone here.”

“Rose is with me now.”

“So what’s she up to, since she’s not here now?”

“Having her mother do her laundry.”

“You went from someone who could kill people with a thorn to someone who needs her mother to do her laundry.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘needs.’ Wants, yeah.”

“I shouldn’t get too superior. If I had a mother, I’d make her do my laundry for me. So you’re not here to fight off some alien invasion or get into some mayhem?”

The Doctor seemed indignant. “No, and you don’t need to sound so disappointed. Would you be volunteering yourself it were otherwise?”

“Maybe. If Brad doesn’t stop me.”

“I might keep that in mind. But if you’ve continued on your old job path, you’re a killer.”

“Which I know you disapprove of.”

That got a small wince, making Schuldig wonder whom the Doctor might have killed recently. Was that how he’d become the walking wounded?

“How could you be so cheery about what you do?”

“It’s easy. Life is beautiful and cruel, and Mother Nature is a cold-hearted bitch. I’m a part of it all the same as everyone else. I could excuse it on a lot of things that happened to me or were done to me, but I won’t. I take lessons from the past but I live in the present.” And the future, when Brad let him in.

The Doctor stared at him. “No guilt?”

“A little. Sometimes. But some things need to be done, and sometimes the right person on the scene has to get his hands dirty so the people who can’t handle it won’t have to.” It made him sound more altruistic than he might strictly be, but Schuldig knew that the broad majority of the people he got hired to kill were bad apples. Good, mild-mannered people who minded their own business didn’t usually warrant skilled, highly paid professionals assigned to take them out.

“It’s that easy?”

“It’s that easy. Done is done. Improve on what you can, figure out what you can’t do anything about, and move on. You’ll last longer.” If the world ended the survivors would be cockroaches and Brad trying to order the cockroaches and Schuldig around. “Though I’m cheerier than usual today because everyone is so jazzed about the sunlight. It feels good. I know what you need to be less gloomy.”

“I’m not gloomy.”

“Sure you’re not.” Schuldig handed him his book. “I just finished this and I think you might like it. It’s a comedy about a misplaced Antichrist, impending Armageddon, playing along with or thwarting destiny, and an angel and demon caught between their superiors and their own judgment. British people wrote it. Find a good place to bask in the sun and read a fun book. Dr. Schuldig prescribes it.” Sometimes Schuldig killed people to cheer himself up, but he doubted the Doctor would go for that.

The old Doctor had been someone to make trouble and overturn empires with. This version wasn’t as much fun. Schuldig had given him something to think about, and the Doctor could make of it whatever he wished, but in the absence of entertaining activities.... Schuldig grinned and said, “I have to get going. If anything apocalyptic comes up, keep me in mind,” and walked away, hands in the pockets of his long coat once he stopped waving goodbye.

Although he could have stayed out longer in the sun, the urge to tell Brad about the meeting became overwhelming. Would Brad get angry? Rant? Even rarer, would he thank Schuldig for scoping the Doctor out and getting more data on the potential threat/ally?

“Don’t slam the door,” Brad said as Schuldig entered.

“Yeah, yeah.” Schuldig even obeyed him. “Guess who I met today doing a laundry run? Well, his new chickie getting her laundry done.”

“I see the future, not the past.”

“The guy I met up with today can do both.” Grinning, Schuldig put his hand on Brad’s shoulder. The sudden riptide of splintered, cascading visions sent Schuldig spinning to lean against the wall for something solid to hold onto, and they hadn’t even been his visions and hadn’t been all of them. So much, too much, to see and interpret.... His head rang, so he could imagine how Brad felt.

Grunting with effort and shaking, Brad had his hands at his temples as he leaned against the table for a few minutes. Once he straightened up and regained his usual veneer of deadly self-control, he said, “We have to leave the UK. We’re at ground zero for invasions here. It would be better if we could leave the planet, but that’s impossible.”

Although Schuldig had seen tiny bits of it himself, he had to protest. “What? Brad, I just started a new game with the kittens!” He had such plans for Aya and Ken, and Chloé had so much angst potential!

“I know.” He sounded implacable.

He made sense.

Schuldig hated it when sense conflicted with what he wanted to do, and although he would follow orders he reserved the right to bitch about it. “Damn it!”

“You’re not going to want to be here in the future. Though we may come back depending on what I decide we should do about Harold Saxon.”

Saxon? Right, the guy in the visions who kind of made Schuldig’s toes curl. From the look on Brad’s face, he knew and was not amused.

“Fine,” Schuldig answered. “Do you feel we need to leave immediately?”

“Not immediately. I believe we have time to wrap things up properly.”

Which was Brad’s way of saying he’d allow Schuldig to play and finish a brief game with the kittens. “Good. I’m all for properly wrapping things up.” Like gifts. “I sure as hell won’t miss all the rain.”

“Schuldig.”

“Na, Brad?”

“Good call on tracking him down and engaging him. You’ve given us warning I don’t think we would have gotten otherwise.”

Schuldig would bask in that any day, not that he’d let Brad get an even bigger swelled head by letting him know. “You’re welcome, Brad.”

Being gloomy and guilty was such a waste of time.

  **********************THE END***********************     More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room version 3.0 at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/   No-frames but no-frills access available at http://viridian.shriftweb.org/index2.htm   Fandoms represented: Weiß Kreuz, Saiyuki, GetBackers, Trinity Blood, Andromeda, due South, Hard Core Logo, Twitch City, X-Files, Once a Thief, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Angel, Two Guys and a Girl (was Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place), X-Men, Smallville, Doctor Who, Fight Club, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine