(no subject)
glastonbury, tenII/rose, pg-13.
"you haven't been crawling around in the air-vents again, have you?", 5,280.
It is her idea, that he takes her to Glastonbury.
She is flicking through Heat when she sees an advert for it. Featuring artists like Beyonce, Coldplay, Tinie Tempah and Kesha, she knows that he will probably hate every single moment of it, but she sighs anyway, saying how great it would be to go, and how she has never had a chance to go to a music festival.
This universe is weird like that; it may not have important things like airplanes and watermelons (when the Doctor had found out about this universe‘s lack of watermelon, he had muttered something along the lines of, “why not pears?”), it still had seemingly unimportant things like Heat, Beyonce and Glastonbury.
When Lisa comes bounding up to her the next day at work, ticket in hand, talking fast and excitedly about Ianto buying her tickets for her birthday, Rose has to stop herself from sighing wistfully. But then Lisa says that they should go as a group, and Rose promises to ask if he'd like to go. Unlike her old life, it's not a case of not being able to afford it anymore.
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She is sitting in her office, getting more and more bored with each word of this damn report that she's having to type up. That's the one major fault with working for Torchwood - the paperwork load is almost comically large. The Doctor is forever moaning and groaning about the emails he gets sent, reminding him to hand this in and that in. She just suggests he does it, and then he wouldn't be getting emails. But he just scoffs, and turns back to whatever he's 'developing' (also known as blowing up) this week.
She herself got one of the emails this morning, reminding her that this particular report was due in last week. She had been ... distracted over the weekend, since both her and the Doctor had got a rare weekend off together. The report had slipped her mind completely, and she is about to give in all together when a single quick, sharp knock at the door is heard. She knows this knock - Jack.
"Come in, Jack," Rose says, and he pokes his head around the door. Completely identical in every physical way to the rogue Captain Jack Harkness Rose knew and loved back in her old universe, this Jack is a little bit different on the inside but still as easy to love. He'll still shag anything with a pulse, however, and it is a miracle and a half that Gwen managed to get him down long enough to get him into a monogamous relationship. He doesn't go by Captain, this Jack. He is simply Jack, and was born on this world, still in America though, and is not fifty-first century con artist. He doesn't possess the ability to come back to life every time he dies, either. But he is still Jack in every sense of the man.
Jack smirks as he sits on the edge of Rose's desk. He and Rose quickly bonded when Rose arrived here, and now they have a brother-sister like relationship that Rose holds very dear to her heart. She thinks that she might be the only person in the world that Jack hasn't tried it on with - she heard a rumour that he'd even tried it on with her Mum, before Pete had told him where to go - but that may be because when he'd first met her, she was crying pretty much constantly and when she wasn't crying, she was secluding herself away, working on her dimension cannon. But Jack had forced himself into her life, and now she couldn't bear to think of him not there.
But right now, she wants to slap that 'I have something you don't have' smirk right off his face.
"Rosie, my darling," he says, every bit as charming as the other Jack. "You will not guess where Gwen and I are going. Glastonbury! I've always wanted to go, and Gwen just didn't really like the idea of public toilets, but I've convinced her to go. I think just the mere idea of seeing Beyonce, Queen of Music herself, on that stage was enough to convince her. Lisa and Ianto are going too, aren't they? We should totally go as a group. You and the Doctor better get yourself tickets or I shall be sorely disappointed, babe."
She just looks up at him, a murderous look on her face.
"Woah there, bitchface. I'm only saying," he says, smirking. He's the only one that's allowed to call her such names, because she knows he's only joking around. And it's Jack. That's a good enough excuse for everything - apart from not writing up your reports.
"He would hate every second of it, I'm sure," she says, pressing the enter button harder than strictly necessary.
Jack raises an eyebrow. "You never know, Rosie, until you ask him."
"Yeah. I guess," Rose says, rushing the end of the report, never so happy to see the 'sent' button appear beside the email.
She turns around, so that she is facing out over London. She has a nice office, on the eleventh floor, and one that has a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out over London town, and Torchwood's courtyard below.
Jack catches her staring, and walks over to the window. "One day, Rose Tyler, all of this will be ours!" he says, stretching his arms out wide. Some people milling around in the courtyard see him, and stare up at him with bemused looks on their faces. He just waves back cheerily, while Rose ends herself laughing.
"Like I haven't heard that one before," she quips, turning away from Jack and back to her desk. "Don't you have work to do, or someone else to annoy the living daylights out of?" she asks, and Jack puts a hand to his heart, pretending to be insulted.
"Rose Tyler, I am aghast that you are not enjoying my company. But alas, I do have work to do. Apparently it's raining in Hartman's office. I have suggested the possibility of a leak, but you know Yvonne, she's determined that it's aliens."
Rose rolls her eyes and smiles as Jack walks towards the door. He rests his hand on the door handle, but doesn't open the door. He turns around, and smirks at Rose. "Remember, Glasto. You better be there or I won't talk to you for a week."
"That sounds like a good plan. I might just not go," she laughs, as Jack turns around and sticks his tongue out at her.
"Bitch."
"If you see the Doctor skulking the corridors, tell him I wanna see him, would you? He isn't answering his phone," Rose says, and Jack nods.
"I'll search the air-vents!" he says as he closes the door, and Rose shakes her head and laughs. Last week, at home time, the Doctor couldn't be found anywhere and Torchwood was turned upside down looking for him. He wasn't out on the field, and his phone was switched off. They had eventually found him crawling around in the fifteenth-floor air vents, claiming that he'd found alien tech in them. It's been two years since they arrived on this world, and she's still figuring him out. And she loves it.
------------------------------
She is halfway through a delicious fruit salad when her door bangs open, and she jumps, spilling a tiny bit of pineapple juice on her desk. He doesn't bother knocking anymore.
"Sorry," the Doctor says, not sorry in the slightest, as he pulls up her extra spinney chair she has and sits on it, propping his feet up on her desk. He sends her a beaming smile. "You called?"
"Hi to you too. And I'm guessing Jack found you then," she says, wiping the juice off her desk with a paper towel, and throws in at her bin across the room. It goes in, and she pumps her fist in the air. The Doctor smiles, and looks suitably impressed by her feat.
"Good throw," he says, nodding his head in the bin's direction. "And yes, Jack found me."
"You weren't crawling around in the air-vents again, were you?"
"Certainly not," the Doctor says, eyes sparkling. "I was helping Yvonne. It's raining in her office again, and it's the bathroom above leaking, but she's still raving on and on about aliens. Why would aliens make it rain in her office? Out of all the people that work in all the offices in the world, why would they choose Yvonne's office to make it rain in?" he shakes his head, clearly annoyed by Yvonne's thinking. "So Jack took over to see if he could convince her to leave in order for them to fix the leak. I'm pretty sure she's camping out in her office overnight just to see if it is aliens."
Rose sighs. "Silly woman."
"That's what I said. She didn't seem too pleased with that. Probably me being rude, but I thought it best she should know she's being silly," he says, reaching over and plucking a grape from Rose's lunch. "Anyway, you wanted to Jack to get me. Why?"
"Can't I simply ask to see my boyfriend at random times in the day?"
"Possibly," he says, shrugging one shoulder. "But I know you, and there is something up. What is it?"
Rose pushes the remainder of her salad to the side - not before the Doctor sneaks another grape - and leans forward on her desk. "Have you ever heard of Glastonbury, Doctor?"
He chews his grape, thinking. He clicks his fingers, and leans forward as best he can without his feet slipping off the desk. "Yes."
Rose is shocked. "You have?"
The Doctor nods, looking quite proud of himself. "Yeah, 'course I have."
Rose raises an eyebrow, and the Doctor sighs.
"When Yvonne wasn't rattling on about aliens, she was rattling on about this Glastonbury thing. Apparently she's going with a load of friends." He admits, looking down at his lap.
"What? Even Yvonne's going? Good lord," Rose says.
The Doctor sighs, and takes his feet off the desk. "Okay, what is this Glastonbury and what does it have to do with everyone all of a sudden?"
"It's a music festival. Some of the biggest artists ever are gonna be there. It's like a weekend thing, you go, camp out, see the artists etc. It nearly always rains and you end up knee deep in mud and beer, but it's said to be a really good time," Rose says, trying to sell it as much as possible while still sounding nonchalant.
"And you want to go?"
"Well, Lisa and Ianto are going, Jack and Gwen are going, and they actually had a good idea, what we all go as a group."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," the Doctor says, and Rose raises an eyebrow. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because half the artists you won't have heard of, it'll probably be cold, and wet, and I didn't think that was really your scene."
“And who was it that took you to Elvis? And Ian Dury and the Blockheads, hmm? Moi,” he says, pointing with two thumbs at himself. “Seems like a good weekend. As long as you’re there, and the beer’s there, I’ll be there.” This him had taken a strong liking to beer that the other him had never had.
“Really?” Rose says.
“Yeah,” he nods, “Can I bring Corona?” he asks, almost like a child asking for a sweet, and it makes Rose laugh.
“’Course,” she says, getting up off her seat and walking around her desk, so she is perched on her desk beside his feet. “But only if I can have one.”
“You can have as many as you like,” he says, jumping off his seat and walking towards her, so that he is standing between her legs. He kisses her softly, but she doesn’t let him get away with that; she kisses him back passionately, and it is a few minutes before they stop. There is only way this can go, and they both know it can’t happen. (Not after last time. Getting called into your bosses’ office for having sex in your office is embarrassing enough, but when you Dad is said boss, embarrassment seems like a good alternative.)
The Doctor pulls away, regret tainting his features, and rests his hands on her shoulders, and starts to twist a strand of her blonde hair around his fingertips. “I really hate that Pete is our boss. And I really hate that window of yours,” he says, lifting one of his hands to gesture to the large window, and to everyone below that could see in, if only they lifted their head to the sky.
“Me too,” Rose says, but looks up at him anyway. “You really are the best, you know that?”
“Of course,” he says, cockily; but kisses her anyway, chastely this time. “Why?”
“For agreeing to go to Glasto.”
“Glasto? Dear god, it has a nickname?” the Doctor looks horrified.
Rose just laughs. “Yeah. I need to go email Lisa. We need to compile a list of everything we’ll need for the weekend.”
“Does this mean I get to go beer shopping?” the Doctor’s voice was hopeful.
“Hell yeah.”
The Doctor punched the air.
------------------------------------------
“How come we got lumbered with they two?”
“Hey!” an indignant, Welsh voice floated across the driveway. “Maybe him, but I resent being called ‘they’ and fact I have been ‘lumbered with’!”
Gwen is standing with a crate of Corona in her hands, with two bags of Doritos on top of that, preparing to load it into Rose and the Doctor’s boot. They had all gathered earlier than morning outside the Doctor and Rose’s flat, where all the supplies for the trip had been carefully stored in their guest bedroom over the past few weeks, starting off small but growing in size as everyone added to it.
It had been decided earlier in the day that for the drive to Glastonbury, the Doctor and Rose would drive in their Torchwood-issued Range Rover, taking Jack and Gwen with them, and they would meet Ianto and Lisa when they arrived there. On the way back, Jack and Gwen would go with Ianto and Lisa, and the Doctor and Rose would get the car to themselves. Jack and Gwen had drawn the long straws, and didn’t have to drive at all.
“Babe, it‘s because they love our company just that much,” Jack says, as he pours over a map that is laid out on the Doctor’s car bonnet, currently being looked over by the three men, leaving the woman to pack the cars with tents, clothes, food, and most importantly, alcohol.
“As long as you don’t start drinking in the car. It irritates me when you do that,” the Doctor says, waggling his finger in Jack’s face. Jack pretends to bite it, and the Doctor slaps him around the head jokingly.
“By God I shall be drinking in the car. As will Gwen and Rose. You’re just annoyed because you can’t have any until … ooh, another three hours. What a bummer!” Jack taunts, and everyone laughs at the Doctor’s misfortune. Lisa tuts from her spot next to Ianto, but even the corner of her mouth was definitely turns upwards.
“After all,” Lisa says, a definite smirk starting to appear, “We don’t want a repeat of my engagement party, do we?” The Doctor groans as everyone laughs; he isn’t going to be able to live that night down for a while. It had been Ianto and Lisa’s engagement party about a month and a half ago, and the Doctor (and Rose) had gotten rather spectacularly drunk. During the course of the night, the Doctor had done the Full Monty strip with Ianto, Jack and two other guys from work, had walked into a door no less than three times, and had done karaoke with Lisa, whilst generally doing other drunken antics.
(He had also played hide-and-seek with Rose, pretended to be a pirate and nearly puked in a bin, all on the walk home from the party, but no-one else needed to know about those.)
The Doctor turns to Rose, a pleading look on his face. “Roooooose? Can’t you drive?”
Rose snorts as she checks everything is in the boot. “I should bloody well think not. We flipped a coin, you lost. You’re driving.”
“I love you?”
“No dice, love,” Rose says, shaking her head at the Doctor’s attempt to make her drive. She crosses over to him and pokes him in the stomach for good measure. “I love you too,” she says quietly, and the Doctor smiles, slinging an arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close, before kissing the top of her blonde head.
Ianto folds up the map, and places it in his glove box. “So it’ll take us about three hours to get there, and you have the directions on your sat-nav, yes?” he says in a soft Welsh accent, and the Doctor nods, eyeing the silver piece of technology with a weary eye. He wasn‘t entirely convinced by it, and he had wanted to fiddle around with it yesterday - “Rose, just a little bit of jiggery-pokery, not much!” - but Rose had snatched it off him, telling him that they needed to find their way there.
“You can follow me down anyway, just in case the sat-nav gives you bad directions. We all have our mobile phones, in case anyone gets lost or we need to stop for bathroom breaks,” Ianto continues.
“Gotcha. Everything ready?” the Doctor asks the women, and they do another mental check before nodding.
“We’ve got everything, and Lisa has everything, so I’m guessing we’re good to go!” Rose says, jumping in the passenger seat. Since the Doctor is driving, Rose gets the passenger seat, while Gwen and Jack take the back two seats. Luckily the car is huge and roomy, so it’s isn’t cramped, even with four grown adults in it.
“See you at Glasto!” Lisa calls from her car, as they set off down the driveway.
“Road trip!” Jack yells as the Doctor exits the driveway, a Corona beer already clutched in the American’s hand.
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The Doctor shakes his head vehemently. “No, Jack, for the last time, we are not listening to show tunes! My car, my rules!” He stares into the rear-view mirror, making eye contact with his passenger.
Jack crosses his arms and pouts in the back seat. He is already well on his way to being tipsy an hour and a half into the three-hour drive, and everyone knows that Jack, when drunk, likes to sing show tunes. Preferably at the top of his voice. He doesn’t have a bad voice - in fact, it’s very good - but after a while, him singing the theme tune from Guys and Dolls or All That Jazz from Chicago becomes incredibly annoying.
Gwen reaches over, and ruffles his hair, smirking all the while at her boyfriend’s pouting face.
Jack takes a swig of beer, and sighs. “You’re supposed to be supporting me, not making fun of me,” he tells Gwen, who just laughs.
“When it comes to show tunes, you’re on your own with that one, mate,” Gwen says, smiling, so that the slight gap in her teeth is showing.
“Whatever,” Jack says, looking out the window and swigging his beer.
“Anyway, Rose,” Gwen says, knowing that Jack will come around in a few moments, “Did you hear about Andrea Brown, on the fourth floor?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes. The girls were getting back to their favourite topic; gossiping about their co-workers.
“No, what about her?” Rose asks, turning around in her seat so that she could see Gwen a bit better, and ended up facing the Doctor with her back against the car door, one knee propped up on the seat so she could see both the road, the Doctor and Gwen, and could easily swivel back around if anything happened.
Gwen sighs. “Pregnant.”
“Again?” Rose says, incredulous. “Isn’t this the fourth in as many years?”
“Uh-huh, but it gets even better,” Gwen says, leaning forward slightly, prolonging the tense moment. “It’s her sister’s husband’s baby.”
Rose gasps. “No bloody way!”
“Yep,” Gwen says, a sort of smug look of her face. “Chelsea from sixth says they’ve been having an affair for two years.”
Rose’s eyebrows are raised. “Does that mean … ”
“The other one, or two, could be his as well?” Gwen finishes, shaking her head. “Possibly.”
“Don’t you two have anything else to talk about, rather than slandering our colleagues?” the Doctor asks, briefly looking away from the road to throw an inquisitive glance at Rose, who is shaking her head.
“Gossip makes the world go round,” she says, making a circle shape with her hand. “And anyway, how else is news supposed to get around? Gossip makes life interesting. Speaking of which, do you know Teresa, what floor is she on … seventh? Eighth?”
“Seventh, if we’re talking about the same Teresa. Small, dark hair, squashed nose?”
“Yeah, that one. Apparently she’s been sleeping with Archie for the past three months.”
“Hold on a minute,” the Doctor says, taking a roundabout carefully before answering, “are you talking about Archie, Archie assistant to Pete, Archie?”
Rose nods, her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek.
“Oh, what a way to get a promotion.”
“Doctor!” Rose says, a hand reaching out to slap him on the arm. He rubs it, and frowns.
“So it’s okay for you two to gossip, but the minute I chime in, it‘s seen as offensive?”
Rose bounces her head up and down. “Pretty much.”
“That’s … unfair, Rose Tyler.”
“Life’s unfair,” Rose says, sticking her tongue out. The Doctor copies her action, and Gwen rolls her eyes. Sometimes it is like working (and being friends with) two children.
Rose turns around, and extends a hand to Gwen. “Beer,” she says, and Gwen takes one from the two six-packs they have resting in the back and hands it to Rose, who pulls the cap off with her teeth - a trick she learnt back in the days of hanging around the estate with Jimmy Stone and his gang.
The Doctor is eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, a sort of disgusted look on his face. “I’m both impressed and repulsed by that,” he says, taking a corner in the way that Rose hates, with only one hand on the steering wheel. He says the same thing every single time she does that little trick, with the exact same look on his face as well. Rose can tell that half of him really is quite disgusted by it, but the other half of him is dying for her to teach him how to do it.
Rose raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything; Jack and the Doctor start an animated conversation about sonic blasters versus sonic disrupters. Rose just sits back, takes a sip of her beer, and lets the conversation wash over her.
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Jack, Ianto and The Doctor are standing at the place the girls had deemed worthy of setting up their tents, surrounded by bits of paper and bits of metal, talking amongst themselves but occasionally shouting at each other, or shoving bits of paper in one another’s faces, or pretending to hit each other in the head with the metal poles. (There was also a lightsaber battle at one point.) Jack is quite drunk, while Ianto and the Doctor are well on their way, having started drinking the moment they had parked their cars.
“NO!” Jack hollers, stabbing a finger into the instructions that were becoming increasingly covered in mud and some rips where they have been fought over by the three intoxicated males. “Part G and part H come together to make part EFGH!”
“Whatever,” the Doctor says, throwing the two poles he is supposed to be connecting to other another to the ground and grabs the piece of paper from Jack’s hand, crumples it up, and throws it to the ground. “We are men, are we not? Instructions are for women and the weak,” he says triumphantly, nodding his head and crossing his arms.
Ianto nods from beside him. “We are men!” He holds up a pole in the air, as if this alone proves that statement.
“Not if you can’t even put up a bloody tent you’re not,” Lisa says, as she bends down, picking up the instructions from the ground and attempting to flatten it out so it could be at least legible.
And so the girls - quite tipsy themselves but not nearly as bad as the men - found themselves having to put up the three tents themselves, with the odd interjection from the men, who sprawled themselves out on their small patch of grass and began to ‘catch the rays’ as Jack was busy telling Gwen. All three of them are drinking more beer, and the Doctor is wearing a pair of mirrored aviators that Rose hasn’t seen before in her life. He looks good in them, though.
“Catch the rays my arse,” Gwen says, as she stands behind Jack and holds a pole up high, pretending to bring it down on his head, but she stops before it actually makes contact with his skull. The girls giggle, but none of the boys are paying any attention whatsoever.
Soon though, the boys become bored of ‘catching the rays’ and begin to “help” the girls - i.e. generally get on their nerves.
“Doctor, gimme your pole, as we’ll attach it to mine,” Lisa says, holding one end of the pole in one hand and the instructions in the other.
“Oo-er,” Jack sings, unable to keep his mouth shut for any period of time. Rose hits him upside the head, grinning all the while.
The Doctor ambled over to Lisa, and their poles connected smoothly. It went in this fashion - Lisa giving out orders, and everyone else obeying them - until three tents were erected, with Lisa looking proudly on while the other five were busy seeing which bands were playing where.
“I wanna go see Beyonce!” Gwen is saying loudly, while Ianto is shaking his head.
“Mumford and Sons is a definite,” he says, the Doctor nodding beside him to show his agreement.
Rose shakes her head. “Well, I would love to see Tinie Tempah. And Ke$ha.”
Lisa, always the organised one, butts in. “I have an idea,” she says. “We all decide in our various couples who we want to see at what time, and if some cross over, then we can go see them together. But if the boys want to go and see, say, Mumford, but the girls want to see Beyonce, we can split up like that, but then no-one is on their own. Agreed?” Everyone nods, seeing as this is the best plan that any of them has had as of yet.
And that is how the Doctor finds himself dancing along - rather drunkenly - to Ke$ha later on in the day, with Rose next to him, singing along at the top of her voice.
“And all the boys are linin’ up coz they hear we got swagger, but we push ‘em to the curb unless they look like Nick Jagger!” she sings, as she watches the small, bedraggled blonde on the stage with barely any clothes on sing about getting off with Nick Jagger - this universe's Mick Jagger.
She is sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead, makeup running off her face, has a Corona clutched in one hand, the Doctor’s hand in the other, is wearing his plaid button-down and a vest with the shortest shorts he’s ever seen, paired with wellies, and looks like she’s having the time of her life.
The Doctor wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the universe but right here, right now in this muddy field with her.
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The third day is coming to a close, and the Doctor and Rose are alone, with the others having said goodbye to them a couple of hours ago to go and see various bands. There are people milling around everywhere, some packing up for tomorrow’s trip home, whilst others are busy having the best last day as possible.
The Doctor and Rose are taking all the sounds, sights, and smells in from all around. They are lying on the grass just outside their tent, hands intertwined. They can hear the soft sounds of Biffy Clyro floating over from the main stage, and the Doctor has a beer in his hand.
Rose turns her head to look at him. He is lying with his face to the sun, eyes closed underneath his aviators, just resting for a moment. He hasn’t had too much to drink - unlike the last two days that he spent in a constant state of intoxication - since he is driving home tomorrow morning. Rose hasn’t had much either, choosing to not travel the three-hour journey tomorrow with a hangover. She just stares for a minute, because it is rare that she sees the always-active Doctor looking so peaceful.
“This has been an amazing weekend, hasn’t it?” she says softly, and the Doctor tilts his head towards her at the sound of her voice.
He takes his aviators off, so he can see her better, and throws them gently by his side. “It has,” he says, just as softly. “I’m really glad we came.”
“Me too,” Rose says, squeezing his hand. “Makes a change from all the running.”
“It does. My legs aren’t used to this resting malarkey. Or this much drinking,” he says, holding up his now-empty bottle of beer. He throws it to the side, so it is resting beside his sunglasses. “My liver won’t like me for this.”
“I’m sure it’ll forgive you,” she laughs, before she looks up to the sky again. She closes her eyes as the sun sinks into her pores, warming her soul inside and out. It is a few minutes before either of them speak.
“Marry me.”
Rose’s eyes snap open, and she turns to look the Doctor. He is looking right at her, still lying on the ground with her hand in his, which he squeezes.
“What?” she breathes, almost sure that she heard words she’d never thought she’d hear from his mouth.
“Will you marry me?” he repeats, just as quietly as he said it before. Now she is certain that what she heard the first time was right. She doesn’t even think about her answer.
“Yes,” she says, in the same quiet tone he asked her; there is no fuss, no big fancy dinner or date, just them, in their jeans and trainers in a muddy field at Glastonbury, and it is so them that Rose is almost overwhelmed with the amazingness of it all.
She leans over and kisses him, pouring as much emotion and feeling as she can into the kiss, and can’t help but feel that this is why the other Doctor left him here, with her.
For moments like this.
"you haven't been crawling around in the air-vents again, have you?", 5,280.
It is her idea, that he takes her to Glastonbury.
She is flicking through Heat when she sees an advert for it. Featuring artists like Beyonce, Coldplay, Tinie Tempah and Kesha, she knows that he will probably hate every single moment of it, but she sighs anyway, saying how great it would be to go, and how she has never had a chance to go to a music festival.
This universe is weird like that; it may not have important things like airplanes and watermelons (when the Doctor had found out about this universe‘s lack of watermelon, he had muttered something along the lines of, “why not pears?”), it still had seemingly unimportant things like Heat, Beyonce and Glastonbury.
When Lisa comes bounding up to her the next day at work, ticket in hand, talking fast and excitedly about Ianto buying her tickets for her birthday, Rose has to stop herself from sighing wistfully. But then Lisa says that they should go as a group, and Rose promises to ask if he'd like to go. Unlike her old life, it's not a case of not being able to afford it anymore.
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She is sitting in her office, getting more and more bored with each word of this damn report that she's having to type up. That's the one major fault with working for Torchwood - the paperwork load is almost comically large. The Doctor is forever moaning and groaning about the emails he gets sent, reminding him to hand this in and that in. She just suggests he does it, and then he wouldn't be getting emails. But he just scoffs, and turns back to whatever he's 'developing' (also known as blowing up) this week.
She herself got one of the emails this morning, reminding her that this particular report was due in last week. She had been ... distracted over the weekend, since both her and the Doctor had got a rare weekend off together. The report had slipped her mind completely, and she is about to give in all together when a single quick, sharp knock at the door is heard. She knows this knock - Jack.
"Come in, Jack," Rose says, and he pokes his head around the door. Completely identical in every physical way to the rogue Captain Jack Harkness Rose knew and loved back in her old universe, this Jack is a little bit different on the inside but still as easy to love. He'll still shag anything with a pulse, however, and it is a miracle and a half that Gwen managed to get him down long enough to get him into a monogamous relationship. He doesn't go by Captain, this Jack. He is simply Jack, and was born on this world, still in America though, and is not fifty-first century con artist. He doesn't possess the ability to come back to life every time he dies, either. But he is still Jack in every sense of the man.
Jack smirks as he sits on the edge of Rose's desk. He and Rose quickly bonded when Rose arrived here, and now they have a brother-sister like relationship that Rose holds very dear to her heart. She thinks that she might be the only person in the world that Jack hasn't tried it on with - she heard a rumour that he'd even tried it on with her Mum, before Pete had told him where to go - but that may be because when he'd first met her, she was crying pretty much constantly and when she wasn't crying, she was secluding herself away, working on her dimension cannon. But Jack had forced himself into her life, and now she couldn't bear to think of him not there.
But right now, she wants to slap that 'I have something you don't have' smirk right off his face.
"Rosie, my darling," he says, every bit as charming as the other Jack. "You will not guess where Gwen and I are going. Glastonbury! I've always wanted to go, and Gwen just didn't really like the idea of public toilets, but I've convinced her to go. I think just the mere idea of seeing Beyonce, Queen of Music herself, on that stage was enough to convince her. Lisa and Ianto are going too, aren't they? We should totally go as a group. You and the Doctor better get yourself tickets or I shall be sorely disappointed, babe."
She just looks up at him, a murderous look on her face.
"Woah there, bitchface. I'm only saying," he says, smirking. He's the only one that's allowed to call her such names, because she knows he's only joking around. And it's Jack. That's a good enough excuse for everything - apart from not writing up your reports.
"He would hate every second of it, I'm sure," she says, pressing the enter button harder than strictly necessary.
Jack raises an eyebrow. "You never know, Rosie, until you ask him."
"Yeah. I guess," Rose says, rushing the end of the report, never so happy to see the 'sent' button appear beside the email.
She turns around, so that she is facing out over London. She has a nice office, on the eleventh floor, and one that has a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out over London town, and Torchwood's courtyard below.
Jack catches her staring, and walks over to the window. "One day, Rose Tyler, all of this will be ours!" he says, stretching his arms out wide. Some people milling around in the courtyard see him, and stare up at him with bemused looks on their faces. He just waves back cheerily, while Rose ends herself laughing.
"Like I haven't heard that one before," she quips, turning away from Jack and back to her desk. "Don't you have work to do, or someone else to annoy the living daylights out of?" she asks, and Jack puts a hand to his heart, pretending to be insulted.
"Rose Tyler, I am aghast that you are not enjoying my company. But alas, I do have work to do. Apparently it's raining in Hartman's office. I have suggested the possibility of a leak, but you know Yvonne, she's determined that it's aliens."
Rose rolls her eyes and smiles as Jack walks towards the door. He rests his hand on the door handle, but doesn't open the door. He turns around, and smirks at Rose. "Remember, Glasto. You better be there or I won't talk to you for a week."
"That sounds like a good plan. I might just not go," she laughs, as Jack turns around and sticks his tongue out at her.
"Bitch."
"If you see the Doctor skulking the corridors, tell him I wanna see him, would you? He isn't answering his phone," Rose says, and Jack nods.
"I'll search the air-vents!" he says as he closes the door, and Rose shakes her head and laughs. Last week, at home time, the Doctor couldn't be found anywhere and Torchwood was turned upside down looking for him. He wasn't out on the field, and his phone was switched off. They had eventually found him crawling around in the fifteenth-floor air vents, claiming that he'd found alien tech in them. It's been two years since they arrived on this world, and she's still figuring him out. And she loves it.
------------------------------
She is halfway through a delicious fruit salad when her door bangs open, and she jumps, spilling a tiny bit of pineapple juice on her desk. He doesn't bother knocking anymore.
"Sorry," the Doctor says, not sorry in the slightest, as he pulls up her extra spinney chair she has and sits on it, propping his feet up on her desk. He sends her a beaming smile. "You called?"
"Hi to you too. And I'm guessing Jack found you then," she says, wiping the juice off her desk with a paper towel, and throws in at her bin across the room. It goes in, and she pumps her fist in the air. The Doctor smiles, and looks suitably impressed by her feat.
"Good throw," he says, nodding his head in the bin's direction. "And yes, Jack found me."
"You weren't crawling around in the air-vents again, were you?"
"Certainly not," the Doctor says, eyes sparkling. "I was helping Yvonne. It's raining in her office again, and it's the bathroom above leaking, but she's still raving on and on about aliens. Why would aliens make it rain in her office? Out of all the people that work in all the offices in the world, why would they choose Yvonne's office to make it rain in?" he shakes his head, clearly annoyed by Yvonne's thinking. "So Jack took over to see if he could convince her to leave in order for them to fix the leak. I'm pretty sure she's camping out in her office overnight just to see if it is aliens."
Rose sighs. "Silly woman."
"That's what I said. She didn't seem too pleased with that. Probably me being rude, but I thought it best she should know she's being silly," he says, reaching over and plucking a grape from Rose's lunch. "Anyway, you wanted to Jack to get me. Why?"
"Can't I simply ask to see my boyfriend at random times in the day?"
"Possibly," he says, shrugging one shoulder. "But I know you, and there is something up. What is it?"
Rose pushes the remainder of her salad to the side - not before the Doctor sneaks another grape - and leans forward on her desk. "Have you ever heard of Glastonbury, Doctor?"
He chews his grape, thinking. He clicks his fingers, and leans forward as best he can without his feet slipping off the desk. "Yes."
Rose is shocked. "You have?"
The Doctor nods, looking quite proud of himself. "Yeah, 'course I have."
Rose raises an eyebrow, and the Doctor sighs.
"When Yvonne wasn't rattling on about aliens, she was rattling on about this Glastonbury thing. Apparently she's going with a load of friends." He admits, looking down at his lap.
"What? Even Yvonne's going? Good lord," Rose says.
The Doctor sighs, and takes his feet off the desk. "Okay, what is this Glastonbury and what does it have to do with everyone all of a sudden?"
"It's a music festival. Some of the biggest artists ever are gonna be there. It's like a weekend thing, you go, camp out, see the artists etc. It nearly always rains and you end up knee deep in mud and beer, but it's said to be a really good time," Rose says, trying to sell it as much as possible while still sounding nonchalant.
"And you want to go?"
"Well, Lisa and Ianto are going, Jack and Gwen are going, and they actually had a good idea, what we all go as a group."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," the Doctor says, and Rose raises an eyebrow. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because half the artists you won't have heard of, it'll probably be cold, and wet, and I didn't think that was really your scene."
“And who was it that took you to Elvis? And Ian Dury and the Blockheads, hmm? Moi,” he says, pointing with two thumbs at himself. “Seems like a good weekend. As long as you’re there, and the beer’s there, I’ll be there.” This him had taken a strong liking to beer that the other him had never had.
“Really?” Rose says.
“Yeah,” he nods, “Can I bring Corona?” he asks, almost like a child asking for a sweet, and it makes Rose laugh.
“’Course,” she says, getting up off her seat and walking around her desk, so she is perched on her desk beside his feet. “But only if I can have one.”
“You can have as many as you like,” he says, jumping off his seat and walking towards her, so that he is standing between her legs. He kisses her softly, but she doesn’t let him get away with that; she kisses him back passionately, and it is a few minutes before they stop. There is only way this can go, and they both know it can’t happen. (Not after last time. Getting called into your bosses’ office for having sex in your office is embarrassing enough, but when you Dad is said boss, embarrassment seems like a good alternative.)
The Doctor pulls away, regret tainting his features, and rests his hands on her shoulders, and starts to twist a strand of her blonde hair around his fingertips. “I really hate that Pete is our boss. And I really hate that window of yours,” he says, lifting one of his hands to gesture to the large window, and to everyone below that could see in, if only they lifted their head to the sky.
“Me too,” Rose says, but looks up at him anyway. “You really are the best, you know that?”
“Of course,” he says, cockily; but kisses her anyway, chastely this time. “Why?”
“For agreeing to go to Glasto.”
“Glasto? Dear god, it has a nickname?” the Doctor looks horrified.
Rose just laughs. “Yeah. I need to go email Lisa. We need to compile a list of everything we’ll need for the weekend.”
“Does this mean I get to go beer shopping?” the Doctor’s voice was hopeful.
“Hell yeah.”
The Doctor punched the air.
------------------------------------------
“How come we got lumbered with they two?”
“Hey!” an indignant, Welsh voice floated across the driveway. “Maybe him, but I resent being called ‘they’ and fact I have been ‘lumbered with’!”
Gwen is standing with a crate of Corona in her hands, with two bags of Doritos on top of that, preparing to load it into Rose and the Doctor’s boot. They had all gathered earlier than morning outside the Doctor and Rose’s flat, where all the supplies for the trip had been carefully stored in their guest bedroom over the past few weeks, starting off small but growing in size as everyone added to it.
It had been decided earlier in the day that for the drive to Glastonbury, the Doctor and Rose would drive in their Torchwood-issued Range Rover, taking Jack and Gwen with them, and they would meet Ianto and Lisa when they arrived there. On the way back, Jack and Gwen would go with Ianto and Lisa, and the Doctor and Rose would get the car to themselves. Jack and Gwen had drawn the long straws, and didn’t have to drive at all.
“Babe, it‘s because they love our company just that much,” Jack says, as he pours over a map that is laid out on the Doctor’s car bonnet, currently being looked over by the three men, leaving the woman to pack the cars with tents, clothes, food, and most importantly, alcohol.
“As long as you don’t start drinking in the car. It irritates me when you do that,” the Doctor says, waggling his finger in Jack’s face. Jack pretends to bite it, and the Doctor slaps him around the head jokingly.
“By God I shall be drinking in the car. As will Gwen and Rose. You’re just annoyed because you can’t have any until … ooh, another three hours. What a bummer!” Jack taunts, and everyone laughs at the Doctor’s misfortune. Lisa tuts from her spot next to Ianto, but even the corner of her mouth was definitely turns upwards.
“After all,” Lisa says, a definite smirk starting to appear, “We don’t want a repeat of my engagement party, do we?” The Doctor groans as everyone laughs; he isn’t going to be able to live that night down for a while. It had been Ianto and Lisa’s engagement party about a month and a half ago, and the Doctor (and Rose) had gotten rather spectacularly drunk. During the course of the night, the Doctor had done the Full Monty strip with Ianto, Jack and two other guys from work, had walked into a door no less than three times, and had done karaoke with Lisa, whilst generally doing other drunken antics.
(He had also played hide-and-seek with Rose, pretended to be a pirate and nearly puked in a bin, all on the walk home from the party, but no-one else needed to know about those.)
The Doctor turns to Rose, a pleading look on his face. “Roooooose? Can’t you drive?”
Rose snorts as she checks everything is in the boot. “I should bloody well think not. We flipped a coin, you lost. You’re driving.”
“I love you?”
“No dice, love,” Rose says, shaking her head at the Doctor’s attempt to make her drive. She crosses over to him and pokes him in the stomach for good measure. “I love you too,” she says quietly, and the Doctor smiles, slinging an arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close, before kissing the top of her blonde head.
Ianto folds up the map, and places it in his glove box. “So it’ll take us about three hours to get there, and you have the directions on your sat-nav, yes?” he says in a soft Welsh accent, and the Doctor nods, eyeing the silver piece of technology with a weary eye. He wasn‘t entirely convinced by it, and he had wanted to fiddle around with it yesterday - “Rose, just a little bit of jiggery-pokery, not much!” - but Rose had snatched it off him, telling him that they needed to find their way there.
“You can follow me down anyway, just in case the sat-nav gives you bad directions. We all have our mobile phones, in case anyone gets lost or we need to stop for bathroom breaks,” Ianto continues.
“Gotcha. Everything ready?” the Doctor asks the women, and they do another mental check before nodding.
“We’ve got everything, and Lisa has everything, so I’m guessing we’re good to go!” Rose says, jumping in the passenger seat. Since the Doctor is driving, Rose gets the passenger seat, while Gwen and Jack take the back two seats. Luckily the car is huge and roomy, so it’s isn’t cramped, even with four grown adults in it.
“See you at Glasto!” Lisa calls from her car, as they set off down the driveway.
“Road trip!” Jack yells as the Doctor exits the driveway, a Corona beer already clutched in the American’s hand.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The Doctor shakes his head vehemently. “No, Jack, for the last time, we are not listening to show tunes! My car, my rules!” He stares into the rear-view mirror, making eye contact with his passenger.
Jack crosses his arms and pouts in the back seat. He is already well on his way to being tipsy an hour and a half into the three-hour drive, and everyone knows that Jack, when drunk, likes to sing show tunes. Preferably at the top of his voice. He doesn’t have a bad voice - in fact, it’s very good - but after a while, him singing the theme tune from Guys and Dolls or All That Jazz from Chicago becomes incredibly annoying.
Gwen reaches over, and ruffles his hair, smirking all the while at her boyfriend’s pouting face.
Jack takes a swig of beer, and sighs. “You’re supposed to be supporting me, not making fun of me,” he tells Gwen, who just laughs.
“When it comes to show tunes, you’re on your own with that one, mate,” Gwen says, smiling, so that the slight gap in her teeth is showing.
“Whatever,” Jack says, looking out the window and swigging his beer.
“Anyway, Rose,” Gwen says, knowing that Jack will come around in a few moments, “Did you hear about Andrea Brown, on the fourth floor?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes. The girls were getting back to their favourite topic; gossiping about their co-workers.
“No, what about her?” Rose asks, turning around in her seat so that she could see Gwen a bit better, and ended up facing the Doctor with her back against the car door, one knee propped up on the seat so she could see both the road, the Doctor and Gwen, and could easily swivel back around if anything happened.
Gwen sighs. “Pregnant.”
“Again?” Rose says, incredulous. “Isn’t this the fourth in as many years?”
“Uh-huh, but it gets even better,” Gwen says, leaning forward slightly, prolonging the tense moment. “It’s her sister’s husband’s baby.”
Rose gasps. “No bloody way!”
“Yep,” Gwen says, a sort of smug look of her face. “Chelsea from sixth says they’ve been having an affair for two years.”
Rose’s eyebrows are raised. “Does that mean … ”
“The other one, or two, could be his as well?” Gwen finishes, shaking her head. “Possibly.”
“Don’t you two have anything else to talk about, rather than slandering our colleagues?” the Doctor asks, briefly looking away from the road to throw an inquisitive glance at Rose, who is shaking her head.
“Gossip makes the world go round,” she says, making a circle shape with her hand. “And anyway, how else is news supposed to get around? Gossip makes life interesting. Speaking of which, do you know Teresa, what floor is she on … seventh? Eighth?”
“Seventh, if we’re talking about the same Teresa. Small, dark hair, squashed nose?”
“Yeah, that one. Apparently she’s been sleeping with Archie for the past three months.”
“Hold on a minute,” the Doctor says, taking a roundabout carefully before answering, “are you talking about Archie, Archie assistant to Pete, Archie?”
Rose nods, her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek.
“Oh, what a way to get a promotion.”
“Doctor!” Rose says, a hand reaching out to slap him on the arm. He rubs it, and frowns.
“So it’s okay for you two to gossip, but the minute I chime in, it‘s seen as offensive?”
Rose bounces her head up and down. “Pretty much.”
“That’s … unfair, Rose Tyler.”
“Life’s unfair,” Rose says, sticking her tongue out. The Doctor copies her action, and Gwen rolls her eyes. Sometimes it is like working (and being friends with) two children.
Rose turns around, and extends a hand to Gwen. “Beer,” she says, and Gwen takes one from the two six-packs they have resting in the back and hands it to Rose, who pulls the cap off with her teeth - a trick she learnt back in the days of hanging around the estate with Jimmy Stone and his gang.
The Doctor is eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, a sort of disgusted look on his face. “I’m both impressed and repulsed by that,” he says, taking a corner in the way that Rose hates, with only one hand on the steering wheel. He says the same thing every single time she does that little trick, with the exact same look on his face as well. Rose can tell that half of him really is quite disgusted by it, but the other half of him is dying for her to teach him how to do it.
Rose raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything; Jack and the Doctor start an animated conversation about sonic blasters versus sonic disrupters. Rose just sits back, takes a sip of her beer, and lets the conversation wash over her.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack, Ianto and The Doctor are standing at the place the girls had deemed worthy of setting up their tents, surrounded by bits of paper and bits of metal, talking amongst themselves but occasionally shouting at each other, or shoving bits of paper in one another’s faces, or pretending to hit each other in the head with the metal poles. (There was also a lightsaber battle at one point.) Jack is quite drunk, while Ianto and the Doctor are well on their way, having started drinking the moment they had parked their cars.
“NO!” Jack hollers, stabbing a finger into the instructions that were becoming increasingly covered in mud and some rips where they have been fought over by the three intoxicated males. “Part G and part H come together to make part EFGH!”
“Whatever,” the Doctor says, throwing the two poles he is supposed to be connecting to other another to the ground and grabs the piece of paper from Jack’s hand, crumples it up, and throws it to the ground. “We are men, are we not? Instructions are for women and the weak,” he says triumphantly, nodding his head and crossing his arms.
Ianto nods from beside him. “We are men!” He holds up a pole in the air, as if this alone proves that statement.
“Not if you can’t even put up a bloody tent you’re not,” Lisa says, as she bends down, picking up the instructions from the ground and attempting to flatten it out so it could be at least legible.
And so the girls - quite tipsy themselves but not nearly as bad as the men - found themselves having to put up the three tents themselves, with the odd interjection from the men, who sprawled themselves out on their small patch of grass and began to ‘catch the rays’ as Jack was busy telling Gwen. All three of them are drinking more beer, and the Doctor is wearing a pair of mirrored aviators that Rose hasn’t seen before in her life. He looks good in them, though.
“Catch the rays my arse,” Gwen says, as she stands behind Jack and holds a pole up high, pretending to bring it down on his head, but she stops before it actually makes contact with his skull. The girls giggle, but none of the boys are paying any attention whatsoever.
Soon though, the boys become bored of ‘catching the rays’ and begin to “help” the girls - i.e. generally get on their nerves.
“Doctor, gimme your pole, as we’ll attach it to mine,” Lisa says, holding one end of the pole in one hand and the instructions in the other.
“Oo-er,” Jack sings, unable to keep his mouth shut for any period of time. Rose hits him upside the head, grinning all the while.
The Doctor ambled over to Lisa, and their poles connected smoothly. It went in this fashion - Lisa giving out orders, and everyone else obeying them - until three tents were erected, with Lisa looking proudly on while the other five were busy seeing which bands were playing where.
“I wanna go see Beyonce!” Gwen is saying loudly, while Ianto is shaking his head.
“Mumford and Sons is a definite,” he says, the Doctor nodding beside him to show his agreement.
Rose shakes her head. “Well, I would love to see Tinie Tempah. And Ke$ha.”
Lisa, always the organised one, butts in. “I have an idea,” she says. “We all decide in our various couples who we want to see at what time, and if some cross over, then we can go see them together. But if the boys want to go and see, say, Mumford, but the girls want to see Beyonce, we can split up like that, but then no-one is on their own. Agreed?” Everyone nods, seeing as this is the best plan that any of them has had as of yet.
And that is how the Doctor finds himself dancing along - rather drunkenly - to Ke$ha later on in the day, with Rose next to him, singing along at the top of her voice.
“And all the boys are linin’ up coz they hear we got swagger, but we push ‘em to the curb unless they look like Nick Jagger!” she sings, as she watches the small, bedraggled blonde on the stage with barely any clothes on sing about getting off with Nick Jagger - this universe's Mick Jagger.
She is sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead, makeup running off her face, has a Corona clutched in one hand, the Doctor’s hand in the other, is wearing his plaid button-down and a vest with the shortest shorts he’s ever seen, paired with wellies, and looks like she’s having the time of her life.
The Doctor wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the universe but right here, right now in this muddy field with her.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The third day is coming to a close, and the Doctor and Rose are alone, with the others having said goodbye to them a couple of hours ago to go and see various bands. There are people milling around everywhere, some packing up for tomorrow’s trip home, whilst others are busy having the best last day as possible.
The Doctor and Rose are taking all the sounds, sights, and smells in from all around. They are lying on the grass just outside their tent, hands intertwined. They can hear the soft sounds of Biffy Clyro floating over from the main stage, and the Doctor has a beer in his hand.
Rose turns her head to look at him. He is lying with his face to the sun, eyes closed underneath his aviators, just resting for a moment. He hasn’t had too much to drink - unlike the last two days that he spent in a constant state of intoxication - since he is driving home tomorrow morning. Rose hasn’t had much either, choosing to not travel the three-hour journey tomorrow with a hangover. She just stares for a minute, because it is rare that she sees the always-active Doctor looking so peaceful.
“This has been an amazing weekend, hasn’t it?” she says softly, and the Doctor tilts his head towards her at the sound of her voice.
He takes his aviators off, so he can see her better, and throws them gently by his side. “It has,” he says, just as softly. “I’m really glad we came.”
“Me too,” Rose says, squeezing his hand. “Makes a change from all the running.”
“It does. My legs aren’t used to this resting malarkey. Or this much drinking,” he says, holding up his now-empty bottle of beer. He throws it to the side, so it is resting beside his sunglasses. “My liver won’t like me for this.”
“I’m sure it’ll forgive you,” she laughs, before she looks up to the sky again. She closes her eyes as the sun sinks into her pores, warming her soul inside and out. It is a few minutes before either of them speak.
“Marry me.”
Rose’s eyes snap open, and she turns to look the Doctor. He is looking right at her, still lying on the ground with her hand in his, which he squeezes.
“What?” she breathes, almost sure that she heard words she’d never thought she’d hear from his mouth.
“Will you marry me?” he repeats, just as quietly as he said it before. Now she is certain that what she heard the first time was right. She doesn’t even think about her answer.
“Yes,” she says, in the same quiet tone he asked her; there is no fuss, no big fancy dinner or date, just them, in their jeans and trainers in a muddy field at Glastonbury, and it is so them that Rose is almost overwhelmed with the amazingness of it all.
She leans over and kisses him, pouring as much emotion and feeling as she can into the kiss, and can’t help but feel that this is why the other Doctor left him here, with her.
For moments like this.