Lonely Adventurers (1/2)
Title: Tiny Explorers
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 1,479
Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership of Doctor Who whatsoever.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Reinette Poisson
Summary: She always knew that he would be coming back. But she had assumed it would be alone. AH. AU.
Author's Note: This is still not exactly where I want it to be, but I'm sure I could work on it for six months and still feel that way! Through some more reworking of my mental storyline, the story will now be four parts. The first being Tiny Explorers, the second being Lonely Adventurers which will be posted in two parts, a third as of yet untitled story, and a fourth from John (The Doctor's) point of view.
Masti: To be drunk on the here and now.
It has been two months since he left her on the Estate. Nothing has changed, not her job, her mum, or her dreams of him.
…
She keeps working at Hendrik’s, having no good reason to quit other than the pay which is the best she can find with her experience. She helps out her mum with bills, but saves whatever she can, hoping that maybe when he returns and asks her again to travel with him, she can say yes. The pile is small but it grows and she is content.
The days are long and monotonous except when broken up by envelopes from far away loves and strangers standing in her courtyard staring at scraps of paper and looking utterly lost.
“You alright there mate?” She asks as she approaches him carefully. The girl with the good heart longs to help him, but the girl who was raised on a council estate is wary and keeps her distance.
He looks up from his papers at the sound of her voice, and she is shocked by the blinding smile he directs at her, making his already handsome face even more luminous. It hurts to look at him, and she fights the urge to shield her eyes. “I am now,” he replies, tucking his papers into the pocket of the overcoat he is wearing. “Rose Tyler?” At her hesitant nod, he sticks out his hand with a smaller smile. “I’m Jack.”
She does not take his hand, choosing instead to look at him suspiciously, taking a step back from the strange man who knows her name. He holds up his hands in a joking manner. “I’m Captain Jack.”
It suddenly occurs to her that this is John’s Jack. Not-actually-a-captain Captain Jack. The Jack she never thought she would meet. She stands now in front of this man who is still a stranger, and feels something she has not felt since before John left. Excited.
“Hello,” She says with a grin and this time she holds out her hand and instead of shaking it, he gallantly flips it over and bows down to delicately kiss it.
…
“You’re kidding, you have to be!”
“No way, I’m telling you that the damn swans were chasing the Doctor through the Versailles gardens and eventually got him a good one on his arm. You should have seen him every time someone asked him where he got the bruise, ‘They are vicious animals!’ he kept insisting!”
Rose nearly chokes on the tea she is drinking; she laughs so hard as her new friend Captain Jack gestures wildly with his coffee to punctuate his story. She has taken him to The Impossible Café, a favorite of hers and John which she has been avoiding due to the memories. Even now it is a bittersweet betrayal to be sitting here laughing without him.
Once her laughter dies down she observes him over the rim of her tea cup watching him as he flags down a waitress to place a new order. He is certainly handsome, and her first instinct is to think he is rich judging by his clothes, mannerisms, and worldly travels, but after spending more time with him she revises her opinion. He acts the part quite well, but she sees something in his eyes, a flash of an emotion that is revealed when he thinks no one is looking. She has seen that look in the mirror before. This man has known hunger.
He catches her eye as he turns back around and she is yanked out of her musings as she flushes and looks down immediately, knowing she has been caught in her study of him.
“So why have you and John stopped traveling together?” She asks, hoping that the change of subject will distract him, but is still burning with curiosity. Her last photo from John shows the Arc de Triomphe, and she still feels a pang to know that he is a mere train ride away from her.
“We haven’t.” He replies casually as he butters a crumpet with short, even strokes, not even looking up to see the impact his words have on her.
She freezes. Then her cup slips from her fingers, crashing to the table and shattering, and the moment is broken as sounds rush back to her and time progresses forward. The waitresses are rushing forward trying to clean up the shards, and amidst the cleaning cloths and flurry of words, she can see between elbows that Jack is calmly eating his crumpet, his eyes trained on hers as he sees what his news has reduced her to. She is shattered.
Once the waitresses have bustled away, she leans forward as if the closeness will deliver what she wants to hear faster. “Where is he?” She breathes out, quickly, anxiously. Her soul is singing now, a glorious song that is coming to its crescendo.
“Last I saw him; he was in the bathroom at his house trying to style his hair to look as if it hadn’t been styled at all.” Jack’s words are still playful, but his eyes are serious as if he knows how much this means to her. “I looked up your address while he was in the shower and then grabbed your photo to make sure I approached the right Rose Tyler.”
Her head is spinning; so many questions are rushing to the forefront of her mind and then are quickly discarded for the next that is more important, more pressing until she blurts, “What photo?”
He pulls a scrap out of his pocket, the one that had been in his hands when she first approached him, that she had assumed was a piece of paper. She sees now that it is a photo of her that she never knew existed.
In it, she eclipses everything, not even being able to distinguish where the photo was taken. She sits somewhere at golden time, staring off somewhere as she is awash in the glowing light of the late afternoon sun, her blonde hair gleaming in dazzling strands of yellow, gold, dandelion, and every other shade of yellow in between. She has never seen herself look so beautiful, and she doesn’t even know where it was taken.
She doesn’t know what to say in the wake of this revelation, that her unrequited love is perhaps requited after all. “I should go back to my flat,” she finally mumbles, and she knows Jackie would be horrified to hear her daughter rushing off to wait for a man, but she does not care, because this is not just a man. This is True Love.
“No need,” Jack replies, and she looks up to see him staring off to just behind her head, something dark and unfriendly kindling in his eyes. She whips her head around, giving herself a crick that she ignores, and sees Him opening the door for someone who is not Her. Their eyes meet briefly across the crowded tea house before she whips back around, a flush covering her cheeks.
This reunion is not at all like she had imagined it would be; a sacred rite to be privately shared is now a public act that feels like a sin, like someone spitting in church. It feels like a farce, a shadow of what it could be, of what it should be.
She can feel his eyes on the back of her head as he weaves through the chair and after an impossibly short amount of time that takes ages, he is beside her once again, his hand inches from hers, and her palm is literally itching. She idly wonders if she is going through withdrawal.
Her mind becomes detached from her surroundings and she is vaguely aware of chairs being pulled up, introductions being made, names being thrown around.
Reinette.
The name is recognized from the backs of several different photographs, and she had been observed in an impersonal way, the way one would observe a model or a famous celebrity.
She has light blonde hair that is twisted and woven up into a chic bun that is gracing all of the hottest runways. Her skin is elegantly pale and unblemished, set off glowingly by the light amount of makeup that graces her face, and complemented by her sparkling grey eyes that are full of sharp wit and intelligence.
Her photos do not do her justice.
Rose begins to feel a burning creeping up behind her eyes, and to her mortification, she discovers she is about to cry.
In all the months of separation from her John, she had never once thought to be worried. She would stay behind and work, and he would travel but always come back to her.
She had just always assumed that he would be coming back alone.
http://ohfortuneslost.livejournal.com/2494.html
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 1,479
Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership of Doctor Who whatsoever.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Reinette Poisson
Summary: She always knew that he would be coming back. But she had assumed it would be alone. AH. AU.
Author's Note: This is still not exactly where I want it to be, but I'm sure I could work on it for six months and still feel that way! Through some more reworking of my mental storyline, the story will now be four parts. The first being Tiny Explorers, the second being Lonely Adventurers which will be posted in two parts, a third as of yet untitled story, and a fourth from John (The Doctor's) point of view.
Masti: To be drunk on the here and now.
It has been two months since he left her on the Estate. Nothing has changed, not her job, her mum, or her dreams of him.
…
She keeps working at Hendrik’s, having no good reason to quit other than the pay which is the best she can find with her experience. She helps out her mum with bills, but saves whatever she can, hoping that maybe when he returns and asks her again to travel with him, she can say yes. The pile is small but it grows and she is content.
The days are long and monotonous except when broken up by envelopes from far away loves and strangers standing in her courtyard staring at scraps of paper and looking utterly lost.
“You alright there mate?” She asks as she approaches him carefully. The girl with the good heart longs to help him, but the girl who was raised on a council estate is wary and keeps her distance.
He looks up from his papers at the sound of her voice, and she is shocked by the blinding smile he directs at her, making his already handsome face even more luminous. It hurts to look at him, and she fights the urge to shield her eyes. “I am now,” he replies, tucking his papers into the pocket of the overcoat he is wearing. “Rose Tyler?” At her hesitant nod, he sticks out his hand with a smaller smile. “I’m Jack.”
She does not take his hand, choosing instead to look at him suspiciously, taking a step back from the strange man who knows her name. He holds up his hands in a joking manner. “I’m Captain Jack.”
It suddenly occurs to her that this is John’s Jack. Not-actually-a-captain Captain Jack. The Jack she never thought she would meet. She stands now in front of this man who is still a stranger, and feels something she has not felt since before John left. Excited.
“Hello,” She says with a grin and this time she holds out her hand and instead of shaking it, he gallantly flips it over and bows down to delicately kiss it.
…
“You’re kidding, you have to be!”
“No way, I’m telling you that the damn swans were chasing the Doctor through the Versailles gardens and eventually got him a good one on his arm. You should have seen him every time someone asked him where he got the bruise, ‘They are vicious animals!’ he kept insisting!”
Rose nearly chokes on the tea she is drinking; she laughs so hard as her new friend Captain Jack gestures wildly with his coffee to punctuate his story. She has taken him to The Impossible Café, a favorite of hers and John which she has been avoiding due to the memories. Even now it is a bittersweet betrayal to be sitting here laughing without him.
Once her laughter dies down she observes him over the rim of her tea cup watching him as he flags down a waitress to place a new order. He is certainly handsome, and her first instinct is to think he is rich judging by his clothes, mannerisms, and worldly travels, but after spending more time with him she revises her opinion. He acts the part quite well, but she sees something in his eyes, a flash of an emotion that is revealed when he thinks no one is looking. She has seen that look in the mirror before. This man has known hunger.
He catches her eye as he turns back around and she is yanked out of her musings as she flushes and looks down immediately, knowing she has been caught in her study of him.
“So why have you and John stopped traveling together?” She asks, hoping that the change of subject will distract him, but is still burning with curiosity. Her last photo from John shows the Arc de Triomphe, and she still feels a pang to know that he is a mere train ride away from her.
“We haven’t.” He replies casually as he butters a crumpet with short, even strokes, not even looking up to see the impact his words have on her.
She freezes. Then her cup slips from her fingers, crashing to the table and shattering, and the moment is broken as sounds rush back to her and time progresses forward. The waitresses are rushing forward trying to clean up the shards, and amidst the cleaning cloths and flurry of words, she can see between elbows that Jack is calmly eating his crumpet, his eyes trained on hers as he sees what his news has reduced her to. She is shattered.
Once the waitresses have bustled away, she leans forward as if the closeness will deliver what she wants to hear faster. “Where is he?” She breathes out, quickly, anxiously. Her soul is singing now, a glorious song that is coming to its crescendo.
“Last I saw him; he was in the bathroom at his house trying to style his hair to look as if it hadn’t been styled at all.” Jack’s words are still playful, but his eyes are serious as if he knows how much this means to her. “I looked up your address while he was in the shower and then grabbed your photo to make sure I approached the right Rose Tyler.”
Her head is spinning; so many questions are rushing to the forefront of her mind and then are quickly discarded for the next that is more important, more pressing until she blurts, “What photo?”
He pulls a scrap out of his pocket, the one that had been in his hands when she first approached him, that she had assumed was a piece of paper. She sees now that it is a photo of her that she never knew existed.
In it, she eclipses everything, not even being able to distinguish where the photo was taken. She sits somewhere at golden time, staring off somewhere as she is awash in the glowing light of the late afternoon sun, her blonde hair gleaming in dazzling strands of yellow, gold, dandelion, and every other shade of yellow in between. She has never seen herself look so beautiful, and she doesn’t even know where it was taken.
She doesn’t know what to say in the wake of this revelation, that her unrequited love is perhaps requited after all. “I should go back to my flat,” she finally mumbles, and she knows Jackie would be horrified to hear her daughter rushing off to wait for a man, but she does not care, because this is not just a man. This is True Love.
“No need,” Jack replies, and she looks up to see him staring off to just behind her head, something dark and unfriendly kindling in his eyes. She whips her head around, giving herself a crick that she ignores, and sees Him opening the door for someone who is not Her. Their eyes meet briefly across the crowded tea house before she whips back around, a flush covering her cheeks.
This reunion is not at all like she had imagined it would be; a sacred rite to be privately shared is now a public act that feels like a sin, like someone spitting in church. It feels like a farce, a shadow of what it could be, of what it should be.
She can feel his eyes on the back of her head as he weaves through the chair and after an impossibly short amount of time that takes ages, he is beside her once again, his hand inches from hers, and her palm is literally itching. She idly wonders if she is going through withdrawal.
Her mind becomes detached from her surroundings and she is vaguely aware of chairs being pulled up, introductions being made, names being thrown around.
Reinette.
The name is recognized from the backs of several different photographs, and she had been observed in an impersonal way, the way one would observe a model or a famous celebrity.
She has light blonde hair that is twisted and woven up into a chic bun that is gracing all of the hottest runways. Her skin is elegantly pale and unblemished, set off glowingly by the light amount of makeup that graces her face, and complemented by her sparkling grey eyes that are full of sharp wit and intelligence.
Her photos do not do her justice.
Rose begins to feel a burning creeping up behind her eyes, and to her mortification, she discovers she is about to cry.
In all the months of separation from her John, she had never once thought to be worried. She would stay behind and work, and he would travel but always come back to her.
She had just always assumed that he would be coming back alone.
http://ohfortuneslost.livejournal.com/2494.html