( continues...) good, he was a grownup who paid attention to Tim, and acted like Tim was worth something. Maybe later, he thought, he should have noticed Billy's wary glares, or how maybe Lindsey paid no attention to Billy and way too much to Tim.

The second day Lindsey was there, just before sunset, he slung an arm across Tim's shoulders. "C'mon cuz, let's you and me go for a walk while there's still light. Maybe you can show me that bike of yours, and I can tell you all sorts of boring stories about what it's like to be a lawyer."

"It's just a crappy old bike. Used to be Billy's, and it weren't even new then," Tim said automatically, but he smiled and let Lindsey lead him outside. "And your stories aren't boring."

Lindsey laughed and ruffled Tim's hair again. "C'mon. Let's go over there," he said, nodding towards a dirt road leading off from the highway.

"There's nothing over there," Tim protested.

"All the better for walking and talking." Lindsey set off at a brisk but easy pace as Tim rode alongside on his rusty old bike, wobbling from having to go so slow. "Actually, I kind of need your help with something, Tim. There's been a bit of trouble at work, and I need to stop it."

"What kind of trouble?" Tim navigated his bike around a rut. "The kind of stuff you see on TV?"

"Depends on what kind of programs you're watching. Anyhow, they've got the wrong people in charge. There's someone who got the job I wanted, and I want to get it back from him. Problem is, there are some people who really want to keep him there, and they'll do anything to stop me from getting to him."

There was a snap to Lindsey's voice that startled Tim, and he let his bike fall to the side, catching himself with his foot, so he was standing there, straddling the tilted over bike.

"How'm I supposed to help you get your job?" Tim had no idea how he was supposed to help. "And who are these people who're tryin' to stop you?"

Lindsey didn't answer at first. He was peering at the horizon, as if waiting for something.

"Sun's just down," he finally said. And then Lindsey grabbed Tim around the chest and pulled him off his bike. Tim squirmed and kicked, but Lindsey was so strong he might as well have been made of iron, and he didn't even flinch when one of Tim's heels cracked into his knee.

Tim was yelling, and Lindsey was shushing him as if he was a kid who'd just woken up from a nightmare, but the stone knife at Tim's throat wasn't any damn dream. The knife cut into his skin, and Tim went limp, as if all the strength had just poured right out of him.

Lindsey lowered Tim to the ground, and it was worse because he was trying to be nice and gentle to his little cousin. But there was nothing nice or gentle about the way Lindsey scooped up some of Tim's blood on his fingers and drew a strange and squiggly circle on the hard dirt of the road. Lindsey touched his bloody fingers to his lips and then stepped inside the circle he'd made with his cousin's blood.

Tim watched, on the verge of blacking out, as strange black marks began to form and swirl on Lindsey's arms.

He forced himself not to whimper as Lindsey crouched down next to him. Lindsey's elbows rested light on his knees, the stone knife nearly dangling in his hand, he was holding it so loosely. And then he shifted, and Tim's eyes went right to that knife, but Lindsey reached out with his other hand instead, and ruffled Tim's hair one last time.

"I'm sorry about this, Tim, real sorry, but you're blood kin, and that's something I need real bad." Then he smiled, sharp and cruel, and it was more real than any of the friendly smiles he'd shown before. Lindsey looked at the marks that were still painting themselves on his skin, then turned his arms over so Tim could get a real good look at the strange letters that almost but didn't quite mean something. "Good thing you're too young to have done any fooling around with the ladies. Maybe in a couple of years, though. Meantime, I got to seal this up so it works (continued...)

( continues...) the way it's supposed to."

Then, Lindsey nicked the tip of his finger with that damned knife, and touched it to the cut on Tim's neck, mixing blood with blood. He said a word that hurt to hear, and the wound pretty much stopped bleeding. Mostly. Anyhow, it stopped bleeding enough so that when Lindsey helped Tim back to the house and started spinning tales of bikes and barbed wire, there was no talk of taking him to the hospital. Lindsey left the next morning. Tim didn't bother to say goodbye. In fact, he didn't say much of anything for another three days.

On the third day, he found a bottle of Wild Turkey under Billy's bed and he drank until he puked.

For a few years after that, he thought he could feel people watching him. It was like they were hunting him, sometimes, except when they found him, they always turned away again in disgust, as if he wasn't the one they were looking for. And when the eyes became too heavy on him, getting good and drunk made them seem less focused somehow.

Eventually, Tim began to think that maybe it was safer to be just another Riggins.

And by the time he was fourteen, and he felt a stab of pain just above his collarbone that meant that Lindsey was dead and the eyes would no longer be looking for Lindsey and finding Tim, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

He can't imagine wanting anything else.

Oh Anne. Wow. Gave me shivers.

Goodness. I don't know FNL, but that fit so well with Oklahoma and Lindsey. Seriously creepifying.

Many thanks, you two!

(Deena, if you have a chance to check out Friday Night Lights, it's worth the time. It's absolutely wonderful. I don't even like football all that much, and I love the show beyond all reason.)

I've only seen the most recent ep, and I got it. I don't even know the characters' names yet, and it made perfect sense to me.

Yet another crossover fic (I had to write several for a fic exchange, and I'm cherry-picking my favorites for posting elsewhere). This one's a Doctor Who crossover featuring Nine.

He'd finally tracked the Cyrene Militia to London, 1960. An ill-advised restoration project at the British Museum had woken the extremist faction from their crystalline cells just as a charity soiree in the museum's Front Hall was in full swing.

What he hadn't been expecting was to show up two minutes after the Militia had begun to tear its way through the hall, reducing socialites and philanthropists to puddles of steaming liquid.

Another thing he hadn't been expecting was to see a primped and pampered fashion plate, complete with Balenciaga gown and trendy up-do, kick off her impractical shoes and then smash a chair into a plate glass display case. He stopped only long enough to watch her pull a bow and other weapons from the shattered case, and to see that she didn't even wince when she sliced her arm open on the broken glass.

The Doctor fought his way towards the Cyrene commander while the woman stood her ground and cleared a path for him as best she could. Blood from the gash in her arm flowed into the scarlet of her gown, and she fired arrow after arrow with terrifying accuracy until there were no more arrows to be fired. Even then she stood, dark eyes narrowed in fear and pride, the ornate knife she'd taken from the case at the ready.

It wasn't needed. The Doctor had reached the Militia's commander, and with him, the control needed to send the surviving zealots back into their jewelled prisons just before the commander could use the control to release the millions of other Cyrenes scattered throughout the galaxy.

Survivors continued to flee out into Russell Street, but the woman who had fought to buy him valuable time stayed rooted in place, staring up at one of the heraldic banners hanging from the balusters of the Great Staircase. He expected her to ask him something along the lines of "what were those things?" or even "what happened?" or "who are you?" but she just stood there with the most unexpected look on her face.

She looked happy. She was breathing hard, blood was still pouring down her arm, but she was happy. The Doctor thought it was a rather startled-looking happy, the kind of happiness you exhibit when you've all but forgotten what being happy was like.

"I appreciate the assist," he said, walking up to her, hands jammed into the pockets of his leather coat. She still seemed every inch the socialite, spoiled and useless, face hidden behind makeup so subtle you knew it must have cost the earth. But then there was the blood, and the bow, and an aura that could only be described as regal. "Where did you learn archery? I'm willing to bet you didn't learn that in finishing school."

It took a moment, but she finally looked around at him. "No, not finishing school," she said, her gaze both sly and fierce. Now that she'd registered his appearance, her eyes (still perfectly ringed with eyeliner and mascara) flickered up and down, taking in his appearance. "You... you aren't exactly from... here, are you?"

"Not at all!" he asserted, giving her his best roguish grin. Then, he pointed over to where the TARDIS waited beside the staircase, several yards to the side of the red and gold banner she'd been staring at a moment before.

Her shaped brows drew together in consternation. Obviously, she had been so taken in by the banner that she had completely failed to notice the blue police box standing right there in the British Museum's Great Hall.

"Come on, let's go inside and get that wound tended to."

He held the door open and he grinned in anticipation. He'd always enjoyed seeing peoples' faces as they saw the inside of the TARDIS for the first time.

She looked through the door of the TARDIS, and the Doctor's face fell a bit as, instead of the expected awe and disbelief, he saw only a sad smile on her face as the happiness of (continued...)

( continues...) a few moments ago faded into sweet melancholy.

"A box that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside," she whispered as she stepped through the door, and he couldn't tell if she was about to start laughing or crying. "Maybe it was real, maybe I can get back..."

The Doctor felt a chill as he wondered if he'd just encountered someone he hadn't met yet.

When he went to bandage her arm, she extended it as if holding out her hand for a kiss. "You were magnificent out there, you know," he told her.

"I don't care for battle," she said quietly. "I never did, really, although I've fought in my fair share of the things. It's a gruesome business, and I'd honestly rather have nothing to do with it."

"But--"

She shook her head, and then turned to look out through the door as if what was out there was far more fascinating than the interior of the TARDIS.

He couldn't help feeling a little offended.

"It was having the chance to fight for what was good and what was right." She held her chin high, but her voice was shaky. "I don't know what those things were, but they were not good and they had no place in this world."

"No. They didn't."

She closed her eyes. "That, I missed. Fighting against what was wrong and evil. I walked away from it all, eyes wide open, and once I started missing it, it was too late. I thought I would never get it back."

"Maybe you can, now. The TARDIS can take you anywhere you want, you know." He'd made a similar offer to another girl, another unlikely but brilliant fighter. And now he extended the offer he probably should have made then. "Anywhen, too."

She laughed. "Anywhen? That's a tempting offer," she said, and he could see in her smile that there were things she would see undone, and people she would give anything to have back. But once again she looked back into the museum and up at the banner over the stairs. "No, marvellous as it is, I don't think your machine can take me where I want to go. But I think I may be able to find my way there on my own, now."

"Are you sure?" he asked even as he thought back to that other girl--Rose--who he thought he should tell about some of the TARDIS's other capacities. "You'd make an excellent travelling companion, Miss..." His voice lifted slightly, making the last part a question.

"Pevensie. Susan Pevensie. And thank you, but no." She inclined her head in farewell, and stepped back out into the museum.

He didn't ask her again. He simply nodded in acknowledgment, and closed the door of the TARDIS.

It may have been a brief encounter, but he knew he would never forget her. He also knew that whenever he thought of her, he would picture her standing under a banner emblazoned with a heraldic lion that was the exact same red as her gown.

Anne, I have ugly memories of Oklahoma and not quite as ugly memories of forced attendance at high school football and other sports games. Being that it's been a while since I was in either position, It ought not be a problem, and yet I am quite turned off by the whole thing, so I don't think I'll catch it. I'm glad you're enthusiastic about it, though. Based on the responses of my FL, it sounds like it's a great show.

eta: and now I've gone back and read your Doctor Who and I like that, too. I'm glad you're posting these here.

forced attendance at high school football and other sports games.

Oh, yuck. Yes, I can see how that would be off-putting.