(no subject)
Come On, Let's Fly Away Ten/Rose, PG
She’d been reaching for her glass of lemonade and the next thing she knows there’s juice and ice cubes tumbling down her stomach, and a man sprawled along the ground with his foot still awkwardly hooked around the leg of her patio lounger. 3,886
“You’re more than pretty enough to be one of them air stewardess, I reckon.” Her mother smooths down the wrinkles in her dress with white gloved hands and Rose rolls her eyes.
“Right, Mum,” she scoffs, shifting the weight of her suitcase against her hip.
“Come along, you two.” Howard calls brightly, already waiting by the taxi he’s procured. Rose has to admit, of all the fellows that her mother has stepped out with, Howard is certainly the nicest.
“And,” her mother had sighed after their first date, “he’s bloody rich. For once.”
Rich was certainly the word. Howard owned the largest produce distributor in London, with the half the vegetables and fruits in all the markets coming in through him. Bless her mum, but she had right awful taste in men, so for her to announce that she’d begun to date the boss only a month after getting the job as a temporary secretary in Howard’s office, well it was a little much to believe.
Another bead of sweat slides down the length of her spine as the driver takes her luggage and she slides into the taxi beside her mother. She’s dying to toss off her jacket which had been comfortable in London, but now feels like an electric blanket.
“Well,” Howard says with a smile, dabbing sweat off his brow with a rather stained looking hankie. “Welcome to California, ladies.”
+
Without a doubt, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is the poshest place she’s ever step foot in. The marble floor is so polished that she can see her eyes staring back up at her, and everywhere she looks something sparkles as it catches the light.
“And where do you think you’re going?” her mum calls, hands firmly on her hips.
Rose tosses a look over her shoulder as she digs for her sun tan lotion, “the pool, obviously.”
“Not looking like that you’re not,” Jackie snaps, “I can see more skin on you then when you were born. Where’d you get that anyway?”
“Don’t flip your wig.” she sighs, “it’s just a bathing suit, Mum. Every girl my age is wearin' one like this. And I needed a new one anyway so I picked it up at Henriks during my last shift.”
Jackie gives her a pointed look - one Rose is ever so familiar with - from the closet as she begins to unpack dress after dress. “Well, Howard is taking us to dinner tonight, so make sure you’re back in time to be ready for five.”
+
It happens so quickly she barely has time to register what’s occurred. She’d been reaching for her glass of lemonade and the next thing she knows there’s juice and ice cubes tumbling down her stomach, and a man sprawled along the ground with his foot still awkwardly hooked around the leg of her patio lounger.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps, pushing her sunglasses off her face as she hurries to kneel over him. “Are you all right?”
Quick as lightening, the man’s brushing off her helping hands and swiveling his head in every direction like he’s looking for something. “Did you see where it went?” he asks in a rushed breath, and she’s surprised to hear that he sounds like he could live round the corner from her.
“What?” Her head follows the frantic movement of his.
“That glowing, pulsating globe of light is what. Oh, sometimes you lot really are just unbelievably oblivious.” He reaches into the inter pocket of his suit to produce something that looks like a large pen with a blue light on the top, and begins waving in through the air in front of him. “You chalk everything up to the glare the sun, or your bloody imagination, and really I’ll give you that the human race is very clever sometimes, but you’re certainly not anywhere clever enough fo-”
“Right,” Rose snaps, her initial concern quickly shifting into annoyance. This bloke had just full out barreled into her, and he was talking to her like she’d somehow inconvenienced him, and for being human no less, which was just barmy considering he was one too. “Well, since you’re clearly not hurt, I’ll be off. You should watch where you’re going next time.”
At this the man frowns, turning to look at her like he’s just realized she was still there. “Oh,” he says slowly, brows furrowing. “I’m being rude aren’t I?”
Rose blanks, “well, yeah,” she shifts awkwardly, suddenly aware of just how naked she looks compared to his suit and tie attire. “I would probably say you are.”
He grins at her with something that could almost be described as delight, something which Rose can’t help but notice makes him look rather dishy. “Sorry about that, I’m usually more agile. I was aiming for a wide leap over your legs, but I seem to have miscalculated and my foot got caught. What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” she eyes him warily as he holds his pen torch which is admitting an odd buzzing sound again. She wonders briefly if she’s simply getting played. It wouldn’t be the first time some bloke has used some wild scheme simply to chat her up. Still something in her compels her to answer. “It’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”
An even stranger noise comes from his device, a high pitch clicking this time, and with a loud excited shout he’s up onto his feet. “Well, Rose Tyler,” he says with a flourish, “it was lovely to crash into your lounger, but I’ve got to split.” She likes the way her name sounds on his tongue, the way his mouth shapes the letters.
She nods, too confused about what to say. “Rose Tyler.” He says again, though more to himself this time than aloud to her. “I’ll remember that.” And with that he’s off, his long legs taking him just as fast as how they had brought him.
+
Rose drifts off again as Howard launches into another story, animated by the wave of his knife and fork as Jackie laughs and pats his arm in affection. She takes a large sip of her wine with a sigh and her eyes scan the length of the dining room again.
She’s always loved to watch people simply being. Her mum was always on her case about it, but she finds she can’t help but watch - especially now. Everything here is so elegant and glamorous compared to her and her mum’s life back in London. Even with her hair coiffed and her dress pressed, she still feels like at any moment someone will realize she doesn’t belong with the rest.
She watches a women in an expensive looking evening gown take a long drag off her cigarette (God she wants one now. Maybe she should buy a pack from the gift shop after dinner when mum’s not lookin’) when something catches her eye by the bar.
It was that man again, the man with the flash suit and mess of wild looking hair. She’d seen dozens of suits like that with the slim cut fit and pinstripes fly off the racks at Henriks over the past few years, but somehow he wears it better than any of the boys that tramp around Piccadilly like they own the place. In his hand is that strange torch like device, and she watches as he fiddles with it for a moment before stuffing it back in his inner breast pocket and pushing off the bar.
What could he possibly be doing with that? Did it have something to do with that apparent orb of light he’d been tracking earlier? And why did he al-
“Rose,” Jackie snaps, colour rising in her cheeks. “Howard just asked if there was anything you wanted to really see tomorrow when we go sightseeing, and here you are with your bloomin’ head in the clouds again.”
“Oh,” Rose blushes, eyes still half trained on the man in the suit as he makes his way out of the dining room - his eyes on some new metal object in his hand. “Sorry,” she mumbles, “I-uh- I feel a little light headed I guess. Too much sun maybe. I’m just gonna splash some cold water on my face, and I’ll be right back.”
She quickly pushes back from her chair, ignoring her mother’s words after her, and heads off in the same direction, her legs taking her as quickly as the heel of her shoes will allow.
When she rounds the corner though, she’s disappointed to find that there’s no one in sight. The hall veers off both left and right and really he could be anywhere by now. What was she expecting to find anyway? She doesn’t even know who he is. He’s just some queer fellow who tripped over her deck lounger. Nothing more to it.
This is ridiculous. She’s being ridiculous. This hollow disappointment in her is ridiculous. Maybe she really did get too much sun this afternoon.
+
A content sigh escapes her lips, the warm California air like a brush against her skin. Today had been a good day - a brilliant day even. Howard and Mum and her had boarded a bus that took them on a guided tour of Hollywood, and she’d felt giddy excitement burn in her when she’d placed her hands in the indentation of Marilyn Monroe’s. It was hard to believe it'd been six years since she'd been found dead. Rose could still remember finding out like it had yesterday.
Her feet ached from the hours she’d spent on them, but then she feels that way every time she’s done a shift at Henrik’s so it was really nothing new.
“Groovy shades,” a voice drawls, London accent coating everything in familiarity. She’s heard that voice before.
She opens her eyes, tipping her sunglasses further down the bridge of her nose to peer over the large white frames. “It’s you.” She breathes, shocked to find him practically standing over her floating body from his stance on the deck of the pool.
“It’s me.” He's grinning at her with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers. He looks exactly the same since the last time she saw him, right down to the rumpled looking brown mod suit and the unruly hair.
“Trip over anything lately?” She uses her hands to gently steer her way towards the edge where he stands.
“That was a one off.” She smiles at this, at the indignation and embarrassment that colours his voice.
“You look a little over dressed for the pool.” She nods towards his trouser covered legs, and he looks down to examine his clothes with a small smile. She’s paddled her way over to the edge by now, and props her elbows along the edge the pool.
“Well, there’s a hole in the knee of my bathers, so I thought I better skip the swim.”
A hole in the knee? What the bloody hell did that mean? “It’s a joke.” He says with a smile, almost like he could read her thoughts.
“Rose Tyler,” he says now, mouth forming around the letters of her name (and she really does love the way he says it). “You were following me last night.”
Rose’s heart picks up its pace. God, did he actually see her? “Follow you? You’re not full of yourself at all, are you?” She fakes a laugh and hopes her cheeks don’t look too pink.
She chances a glance at him and catches the hard edge his eyes have taken. “You need to forget about me, Rose Tyler. It won’t do you any good to go looking for trouble.”
“And you’re trouble, are you?” she can’t seem to hide the skepticism from her voice, or for that matter the tiny thrill that tumbles down her spine when he leans down to level his face more with hers.
“Yes,” he says, and his dark eyes burn with something unknown, “I am.”
“Well,” Rose begins, pushing the weight of herself onto her elbows to lift herself a little further out of the water and closer to his face. “Maybe I like a spot of trouble now and again.”
His eyes are dark like they hold the secrets to the universe. She watches breathlessly as they dip down to the expanse of her collarbone and then back up to her face. He grins and she has to bite her lip. “Yes, I imagine you do - that’s why I like you.” He pushes himself back up into a standing position so he towers over her again. “And that’s why you can’t get involved with me.”
He turns to leave, but Rose will have none of that. She’s never let someone just blow her off, and she certainly isn’t about to now. And besides, he’d said he likes her. “Wait. You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Bit rude, don’t you think?”
He pauses, and Rose smiles shyly when he spins back ‘round. “Very true.” He says, “Suppose I am being rude again, aren’t I? I seem to have a problem with that.”
“I’m the Doctor.” His hands are back in the pockets of his trousers, but his stance is one of someone who has more self confidence then is generally necessary.
“The Doctor? Just ‘the Doctor'’? That’s all I get?”
“Yep,” he replies, popping the ‘p’.
“Fine,” she calls after his retreating form, “I’ll see you later then, Doctor.” He doesn’t reply, just throws a hand up in a loose wristed wave, and she smiles.
+
Howard’s off meeting with potential companies, and so Rose and Jackie head out for a bit of shopping.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Jackie calls, pulling a lavender chiffon mini dress with sheer billowing sleeves that taper at the wrist. “This would look perfect with those white t-strap heels of yours.”
Rose smiles over the rack, “Oh, I love that, it’s fab.” She places it on top of the one already in her hands, a red crocheted mini with trumpet sleeves.
She thinks wistfully as she looks through another rack that really she could do this all day. In London girls skirt around in dresses that could be mistaken for paper bags, all of them trying their hardest to blend into the scenes of Ready Steady Go! and to be the next Twiggy. It's different in America somehow.
It might be the era of the British Invasion, as the magazines call it, but Rose would switch her life in London for one by the ocean any day.
+
The sky is dark, but the air is warm and sweet and she breathes it in with hungry lungs. She takes another slow drag off the fag she’d bummed from one of the bus boys and watches the amber tip flare in the night.
“You know smoking is terribly bad for you.” He walks up beside her, stuffing his hands into his pockets and scuffs his left trainer along the ground. How long had he been there?
“Well you’re the Doctor, so I’ll take your word for it.” She smiles, “you might want to tell that to the rest of the people in the dining room.” She motions with her head towards the open patio doors where a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke surrounds the dining room.
“Humans.” He mutters under his breath in exasperation, leaning against the railing beside her. “In a year’s time you’ll place a man on the moon for the first time, and begin to explore the stars, yet you don’t properly figure out the fatal hazards of smoking for years to come.”
“What do mean in year’s time?” She turns to look at him and her brows furrow. He’s wearing glasses tonight, thick black frames that put her mind of an LP of Buddy Holly her mum has. “How could you possibly know what’ll happen in the future? You talk as if it’s already happened.”
He throws her a cheeky grin and crosses his ankles. “I have my ways, Rose Tyler.”
She stares out at the sea of lights of Los Angeles laid out before her. “Thought you warned me to stay away from you.”
“I did,” he says, the breeze catching the fringe of his mess of hair, “and rightly so, but as it turns out, you might actually be useful to me.”
“Oh,” she turns back to look at him, “and how’s that?”
He smiles, “See the thing is, if I go skulking around in there all my lonesome it will look suspicious. But,” he adds with a raised brow directed at her, “If I was accompanied by a hip young bird such as yourself, then no one would be the wiser.”
She brushes at the strands of hair stuck to her lipstick and frowns up at him. “What are you looking for? If I’m gonna help you, I gotta know what I’m gettin’ myself into.”
“If you must know, I’m tracking down heavy readings of particle radiation.”
“Radiation?” She’d heard of radiation when they’d talked about the war and the horrible things that had happened in Japan at school, but she’d never been exactly an academic and then she’d met Jimmy Stone and that had been that.
Besides, a new war wages on now. She'd seen the protest signs plastered across the city.
“More or less, it’s energy produced by materials or physical interactions that have come in contact, like matter and anti-matter. Don’t they teach you anything in school?”
She blushes, covering her embarrassment with another drag off her cigarette. “Maybe, but I was rubbish at school anyway. Dropped out when I was sixteen.”
“How old are you now?” He asks, eyes flickering down the length of her body.
“Nineteen.” She replies simply, turning into him with a coy smile that often got her a free drink at the pub. “How ‘bout you?”
“Much too old for you, that’s for certain.” He states with a laugh and she scowls. He doesn’t look that much older than her, and anyway she’d been told countless times that she was mature for her age. She goes to say as much, but he stops her, pushing off the railing and taking her hand. “Well, Rose Tyler, shall we head off into the unknown.”
She flexes her fingers, threading their fingers in a more intimate manner so their palms touch. He glances down at their hands, then back up at her face with a small, shy grin.
“Yeah,” she says brightly, “I think I am.”
+
They sit at the bar and Rose lights another cigarette (The Doctor throws her a hard glance and she smiles and promises she'll quit tomorrow).
He’s fiddling with that strange metal contraption again, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he spins one of the dials.
“What is that thing?” she asks, free hand playing around the rim of her martini.
“It’s a modified Sontaran Geiger counter when I can get it to bloody work.” He mutters darkly, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as pulls his torch gizmo from his suit and holds it up to the Geiger counter.
“And what’s that, then? You had that out the day we met.”
He looks up at her. “What, this?” he asks, waving his torch thing slightly. “It’s my sonic screwdriver. It’s ever so handy. Don’t know where I’d be without it really.”
“Well,” she says taking a sip of her drink, “I’ve never heard of it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
“Oi!” She snaps, swotting at his arm and feigning annoyance. She blushes slightly when he looks up at her with a rather surprised expression. She fleetingly worries if maybe she’s crossed some personal boundary he has by touching him uninvited, but stops when a small smile crawls across his face. She meets it, her lips tugging into a shy grin, and blushes again when he clears his throat and looks away.
“So, Rose Tyler (when she’d asked him why he always used her whole name, he’d smiled and said he likes the way it feels on his tongue) what’s a girl like you doing in place like this?”
“Whaddya mean?” she giggles, amused at how his mind seems to jump from topic to topic.
“I mean,” he sighs, smirking at her, “you don’t exactly sound like a girl from a Beach Boys song. More like Swinging London, I'd say.”
“Oh,” she laughs, now realizing she should have never mentioned that she’d bought their album earlier that day. “Howard, my mum’s boyfriend yeah, well he’s, like, the head of the largest produce distributor in London, and he was headed up to California for a few days lookin’ for a new farm to buy his oranges off of, so he just offered to take me an’ mum with him.”
“Oh, I love oranges. They’re not as good as apples or bananas mind, but still quite tasty. Did he say what kind, because Moro, or blood oranges as you lot so crudely put it, are particularly good from this area. Plus they have a hint of rasp-” suddenly his Geiger counter begins to beep wildly - earning the pair of them a few queer glances and the Doctor jumps from his stool in an excited manner.
“We’re in business now, Rose.” He slaps his hands together quickly before offering his hand for her take once again. She smiles, twining them together as she slides off her stool and together they make their way across the dining room with the Geiger counter beeping away.
“What exactly are we lookin’ for?” she calls, apologizing over her shoulder as they blow through a group of people headed for a table.
“Don’t really know,” the Doctor replies, his nose practically rubbing against the Geiger counter he’s got it held so close to his face. “The Usarians can take on so many forms, it’s hard to tell what exactly it is, but if my guess is correct, and I warn you I’m hardly ever wrong, then we’re looking for it in humanoid form.”
She halts her steps, their connected arms stretching out in front of her as he’s pulled back. “What exactly do you mean by ‘humanoid’, Doctor?”
He stares at her for a moment before taking a step towards her. “We’re looking for an alien, Rose.” She sucks in a breath of air, and his hard features soften a little. “Are you okay with that, or do you want to leave?”
She swallows, the sound of people enjoying their meals still present. “I’m okay,” she says quietly, meeting his eye. “I want to help.”
She looks down their hands again, a thousand thoughts tumbling through her head before she looks back up at him. “You’re an alien too, aren’t you?”
He nods.
She takes a deep breath, thinking about how earlier this afternoon the only worries she’d had was if her hair had quite enough volume, and if her eye make-up matched Jean Shrimpton’s in her April issue of Vogue. “Okay,” she hears herself say. “Okay.”
He smiles, squeezing her hand in what she thinks might be affection. “Do you trust me, Rose Tyler?”
She looks at him, takes in his eyes that burn with a thousand possibilities and the way his hand seems to fit perfectly in hers, like they were always made to hold each others, and smiles.
“Yes,” she breathes. “I trust you.”
And so they run.
She’d been reaching for her glass of lemonade and the next thing she knows there’s juice and ice cubes tumbling down her stomach, and a man sprawled along the ground with his foot still awkwardly hooked around the leg of her patio lounger. 3,886
“You’re more than pretty enough to be one of them air stewardess, I reckon.” Her mother smooths down the wrinkles in her dress with white gloved hands and Rose rolls her eyes.
“Right, Mum,” she scoffs, shifting the weight of her suitcase against her hip.
“Come along, you two.” Howard calls brightly, already waiting by the taxi he’s procured. Rose has to admit, of all the fellows that her mother has stepped out with, Howard is certainly the nicest.
“And,” her mother had sighed after their first date, “he’s bloody rich. For once.”
Rich was certainly the word. Howard owned the largest produce distributor in London, with the half the vegetables and fruits in all the markets coming in through him. Bless her mum, but she had right awful taste in men, so for her to announce that she’d begun to date the boss only a month after getting the job as a temporary secretary in Howard’s office, well it was a little much to believe.
Another bead of sweat slides down the length of her spine as the driver takes her luggage and she slides into the taxi beside her mother. She’s dying to toss off her jacket which had been comfortable in London, but now feels like an electric blanket.
“Well,” Howard says with a smile, dabbing sweat off his brow with a rather stained looking hankie. “Welcome to California, ladies.”
+
Without a doubt, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is the poshest place she’s ever step foot in. The marble floor is so polished that she can see her eyes staring back up at her, and everywhere she looks something sparkles as it catches the light.
“And where do you think you’re going?” her mum calls, hands firmly on her hips.
Rose tosses a look over her shoulder as she digs for her sun tan lotion, “the pool, obviously.”
“Not looking like that you’re not,” Jackie snaps, “I can see more skin on you then when you were born. Where’d you get that anyway?”
“Don’t flip your wig.” she sighs, “it’s just a bathing suit, Mum. Every girl my age is wearin' one like this. And I needed a new one anyway so I picked it up at Henriks during my last shift.”
Jackie gives her a pointed look - one Rose is ever so familiar with - from the closet as she begins to unpack dress after dress. “Well, Howard is taking us to dinner tonight, so make sure you’re back in time to be ready for five.”
+
It happens so quickly she barely has time to register what’s occurred. She’d been reaching for her glass of lemonade and the next thing she knows there’s juice and ice cubes tumbling down her stomach, and a man sprawled along the ground with his foot still awkwardly hooked around the leg of her patio lounger.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps, pushing her sunglasses off her face as she hurries to kneel over him. “Are you all right?”
Quick as lightening, the man’s brushing off her helping hands and swiveling his head in every direction like he’s looking for something. “Did you see where it went?” he asks in a rushed breath, and she’s surprised to hear that he sounds like he could live round the corner from her.
“What?” Her head follows the frantic movement of his.
“That glowing, pulsating globe of light is what. Oh, sometimes you lot really are just unbelievably oblivious.” He reaches into the inter pocket of his suit to produce something that looks like a large pen with a blue light on the top, and begins waving in through the air in front of him. “You chalk everything up to the glare the sun, or your bloody imagination, and really I’ll give you that the human race is very clever sometimes, but you’re certainly not anywhere clever enough fo-”
“Right,” Rose snaps, her initial concern quickly shifting into annoyance. This bloke had just full out barreled into her, and he was talking to her like she’d somehow inconvenienced him, and for being human no less, which was just barmy considering he was one too. “Well, since you’re clearly not hurt, I’ll be off. You should watch where you’re going next time.”
At this the man frowns, turning to look at her like he’s just realized she was still there. “Oh,” he says slowly, brows furrowing. “I’m being rude aren’t I?”
Rose blanks, “well, yeah,” she shifts awkwardly, suddenly aware of just how naked she looks compared to his suit and tie attire. “I would probably say you are.”
He grins at her with something that could almost be described as delight, something which Rose can’t help but notice makes him look rather dishy. “Sorry about that, I’m usually more agile. I was aiming for a wide leap over your legs, but I seem to have miscalculated and my foot got caught. What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” she eyes him warily as he holds his pen torch which is admitting an odd buzzing sound again. She wonders briefly if she’s simply getting played. It wouldn’t be the first time some bloke has used some wild scheme simply to chat her up. Still something in her compels her to answer. “It’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”
An even stranger noise comes from his device, a high pitch clicking this time, and with a loud excited shout he’s up onto his feet. “Well, Rose Tyler,” he says with a flourish, “it was lovely to crash into your lounger, but I’ve got to split.” She likes the way her name sounds on his tongue, the way his mouth shapes the letters.
She nods, too confused about what to say. “Rose Tyler.” He says again, though more to himself this time than aloud to her. “I’ll remember that.” And with that he’s off, his long legs taking him just as fast as how they had brought him.
+
Rose drifts off again as Howard launches into another story, animated by the wave of his knife and fork as Jackie laughs and pats his arm in affection. She takes a large sip of her wine with a sigh and her eyes scan the length of the dining room again.
She’s always loved to watch people simply being. Her mum was always on her case about it, but she finds she can’t help but watch - especially now. Everything here is so elegant and glamorous compared to her and her mum’s life back in London. Even with her hair coiffed and her dress pressed, she still feels like at any moment someone will realize she doesn’t belong with the rest.
She watches a women in an expensive looking evening gown take a long drag off her cigarette (God she wants one now. Maybe she should buy a pack from the gift shop after dinner when mum’s not lookin’) when something catches her eye by the bar.
It was that man again, the man with the flash suit and mess of wild looking hair. She’d seen dozens of suits like that with the slim cut fit and pinstripes fly off the racks at Henriks over the past few years, but somehow he wears it better than any of the boys that tramp around Piccadilly like they own the place. In his hand is that strange torch like device, and she watches as he fiddles with it for a moment before stuffing it back in his inner breast pocket and pushing off the bar.
What could he possibly be doing with that? Did it have something to do with that apparent orb of light he’d been tracking earlier? And why did he al-
“Rose,” Jackie snaps, colour rising in her cheeks. “Howard just asked if there was anything you wanted to really see tomorrow when we go sightseeing, and here you are with your bloomin’ head in the clouds again.”
“Oh,” Rose blushes, eyes still half trained on the man in the suit as he makes his way out of the dining room - his eyes on some new metal object in his hand. “Sorry,” she mumbles, “I-uh- I feel a little light headed I guess. Too much sun maybe. I’m just gonna splash some cold water on my face, and I’ll be right back.”
She quickly pushes back from her chair, ignoring her mother’s words after her, and heads off in the same direction, her legs taking her as quickly as the heel of her shoes will allow.
When she rounds the corner though, she’s disappointed to find that there’s no one in sight. The hall veers off both left and right and really he could be anywhere by now. What was she expecting to find anyway? She doesn’t even know who he is. He’s just some queer fellow who tripped over her deck lounger. Nothing more to it.
This is ridiculous. She’s being ridiculous. This hollow disappointment in her is ridiculous. Maybe she really did get too much sun this afternoon.
+
A content sigh escapes her lips, the warm California air like a brush against her skin. Today had been a good day - a brilliant day even. Howard and Mum and her had boarded a bus that took them on a guided tour of Hollywood, and she’d felt giddy excitement burn in her when she’d placed her hands in the indentation of Marilyn Monroe’s. It was hard to believe it'd been six years since she'd been found dead. Rose could still remember finding out like it had yesterday.
Her feet ached from the hours she’d spent on them, but then she feels that way every time she’s done a shift at Henrik’s so it was really nothing new.
“Groovy shades,” a voice drawls, London accent coating everything in familiarity. She’s heard that voice before.
She opens her eyes, tipping her sunglasses further down the bridge of her nose to peer over the large white frames. “It’s you.” She breathes, shocked to find him practically standing over her floating body from his stance on the deck of the pool.
“It’s me.” He's grinning at her with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers. He looks exactly the same since the last time she saw him, right down to the rumpled looking brown mod suit and the unruly hair.
“Trip over anything lately?” She uses her hands to gently steer her way towards the edge where he stands.
“That was a one off.” She smiles at this, at the indignation and embarrassment that colours his voice.
“You look a little over dressed for the pool.” She nods towards his trouser covered legs, and he looks down to examine his clothes with a small smile. She’s paddled her way over to the edge by now, and props her elbows along the edge the pool.
“Well, there’s a hole in the knee of my bathers, so I thought I better skip the swim.”
A hole in the knee? What the bloody hell did that mean? “It’s a joke.” He says with a smile, almost like he could read her thoughts.
“Rose Tyler,” he says now, mouth forming around the letters of her name (and she really does love the way he says it). “You were following me last night.”
Rose’s heart picks up its pace. God, did he actually see her? “Follow you? You’re not full of yourself at all, are you?” She fakes a laugh and hopes her cheeks don’t look too pink.
She chances a glance at him and catches the hard edge his eyes have taken. “You need to forget about me, Rose Tyler. It won’t do you any good to go looking for trouble.”
“And you’re trouble, are you?” she can’t seem to hide the skepticism from her voice, or for that matter the tiny thrill that tumbles down her spine when he leans down to level his face more with hers.
“Yes,” he says, and his dark eyes burn with something unknown, “I am.”
“Well,” Rose begins, pushing the weight of herself onto her elbows to lift herself a little further out of the water and closer to his face. “Maybe I like a spot of trouble now and again.”
His eyes are dark like they hold the secrets to the universe. She watches breathlessly as they dip down to the expanse of her collarbone and then back up to her face. He grins and she has to bite her lip. “Yes, I imagine you do - that’s why I like you.” He pushes himself back up into a standing position so he towers over her again. “And that’s why you can’t get involved with me.”
He turns to leave, but Rose will have none of that. She’s never let someone just blow her off, and she certainly isn’t about to now. And besides, he’d said he likes her. “Wait. You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Bit rude, don’t you think?”
He pauses, and Rose smiles shyly when he spins back ‘round. “Very true.” He says, “Suppose I am being rude again, aren’t I? I seem to have a problem with that.”
“I’m the Doctor.” His hands are back in the pockets of his trousers, but his stance is one of someone who has more self confidence then is generally necessary.
“The Doctor? Just ‘the Doctor'’? That’s all I get?”
“Yep,” he replies, popping the ‘p’.
“Fine,” she calls after his retreating form, “I’ll see you later then, Doctor.” He doesn’t reply, just throws a hand up in a loose wristed wave, and she smiles.
+
Howard’s off meeting with potential companies, and so Rose and Jackie head out for a bit of shopping.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Jackie calls, pulling a lavender chiffon mini dress with sheer billowing sleeves that taper at the wrist. “This would look perfect with those white t-strap heels of yours.”
Rose smiles over the rack, “Oh, I love that, it’s fab.” She places it on top of the one already in her hands, a red crocheted mini with trumpet sleeves.
She thinks wistfully as she looks through another rack that really she could do this all day. In London girls skirt around in dresses that could be mistaken for paper bags, all of them trying their hardest to blend into the scenes of Ready Steady Go! and to be the next Twiggy. It's different in America somehow.
It might be the era of the British Invasion, as the magazines call it, but Rose would switch her life in London for one by the ocean any day.
+
The sky is dark, but the air is warm and sweet and she breathes it in with hungry lungs. She takes another slow drag off the fag she’d bummed from one of the bus boys and watches the amber tip flare in the night.
“You know smoking is terribly bad for you.” He walks up beside her, stuffing his hands into his pockets and scuffs his left trainer along the ground. How long had he been there?
“Well you’re the Doctor, so I’ll take your word for it.” She smiles, “you might want to tell that to the rest of the people in the dining room.” She motions with her head towards the open patio doors where a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke surrounds the dining room.
“Humans.” He mutters under his breath in exasperation, leaning against the railing beside her. “In a year’s time you’ll place a man on the moon for the first time, and begin to explore the stars, yet you don’t properly figure out the fatal hazards of smoking for years to come.”
“What do mean in year’s time?” She turns to look at him and her brows furrow. He’s wearing glasses tonight, thick black frames that put her mind of an LP of Buddy Holly her mum has. “How could you possibly know what’ll happen in the future? You talk as if it’s already happened.”
He throws her a cheeky grin and crosses his ankles. “I have my ways, Rose Tyler.”
She stares out at the sea of lights of Los Angeles laid out before her. “Thought you warned me to stay away from you.”
“I did,” he says, the breeze catching the fringe of his mess of hair, “and rightly so, but as it turns out, you might actually be useful to me.”
“Oh,” she turns back to look at him, “and how’s that?”
He smiles, “See the thing is, if I go skulking around in there all my lonesome it will look suspicious. But,” he adds with a raised brow directed at her, “If I was accompanied by a hip young bird such as yourself, then no one would be the wiser.”
She brushes at the strands of hair stuck to her lipstick and frowns up at him. “What are you looking for? If I’m gonna help you, I gotta know what I’m gettin’ myself into.”
“If you must know, I’m tracking down heavy readings of particle radiation.”
“Radiation?” She’d heard of radiation when they’d talked about the war and the horrible things that had happened in Japan at school, but she’d never been exactly an academic and then she’d met Jimmy Stone and that had been that.
Besides, a new war wages on now. She'd seen the protest signs plastered across the city.
“More or less, it’s energy produced by materials or physical interactions that have come in contact, like matter and anti-matter. Don’t they teach you anything in school?”
She blushes, covering her embarrassment with another drag off her cigarette. “Maybe, but I was rubbish at school anyway. Dropped out when I was sixteen.”
“How old are you now?” He asks, eyes flickering down the length of her body.
“Nineteen.” She replies simply, turning into him with a coy smile that often got her a free drink at the pub. “How ‘bout you?”
“Much too old for you, that’s for certain.” He states with a laugh and she scowls. He doesn’t look that much older than her, and anyway she’d been told countless times that she was mature for her age. She goes to say as much, but he stops her, pushing off the railing and taking her hand. “Well, Rose Tyler, shall we head off into the unknown.”
She flexes her fingers, threading their fingers in a more intimate manner so their palms touch. He glances down at their hands, then back up at her face with a small, shy grin.
“Yeah,” she says brightly, “I think I am.”
+
They sit at the bar and Rose lights another cigarette (The Doctor throws her a hard glance and she smiles and promises she'll quit tomorrow).
He’s fiddling with that strange metal contraption again, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he spins one of the dials.
“What is that thing?” she asks, free hand playing around the rim of her martini.
“It’s a modified Sontaran Geiger counter when I can get it to bloody work.” He mutters darkly, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as pulls his torch gizmo from his suit and holds it up to the Geiger counter.
“And what’s that, then? You had that out the day we met.”
He looks up at her. “What, this?” he asks, waving his torch thing slightly. “It’s my sonic screwdriver. It’s ever so handy. Don’t know where I’d be without it really.”
“Well,” she says taking a sip of her drink, “I’ve never heard of it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
“Oi!” She snaps, swotting at his arm and feigning annoyance. She blushes slightly when he looks up at her with a rather surprised expression. She fleetingly worries if maybe she’s crossed some personal boundary he has by touching him uninvited, but stops when a small smile crawls across his face. She meets it, her lips tugging into a shy grin, and blushes again when he clears his throat and looks away.
“So, Rose Tyler (when she’d asked him why he always used her whole name, he’d smiled and said he likes the way it feels on his tongue) what’s a girl like you doing in place like this?”
“Whaddya mean?” she giggles, amused at how his mind seems to jump from topic to topic.
“I mean,” he sighs, smirking at her, “you don’t exactly sound like a girl from a Beach Boys song. More like Swinging London, I'd say.”
“Oh,” she laughs, now realizing she should have never mentioned that she’d bought their album earlier that day. “Howard, my mum’s boyfriend yeah, well he’s, like, the head of the largest produce distributor in London, and he was headed up to California for a few days lookin’ for a new farm to buy his oranges off of, so he just offered to take me an’ mum with him.”
“Oh, I love oranges. They’re not as good as apples or bananas mind, but still quite tasty. Did he say what kind, because Moro, or blood oranges as you lot so crudely put it, are particularly good from this area. Plus they have a hint of rasp-” suddenly his Geiger counter begins to beep wildly - earning the pair of them a few queer glances and the Doctor jumps from his stool in an excited manner.
“We’re in business now, Rose.” He slaps his hands together quickly before offering his hand for her take once again. She smiles, twining them together as she slides off her stool and together they make their way across the dining room with the Geiger counter beeping away.
“What exactly are we lookin’ for?” she calls, apologizing over her shoulder as they blow through a group of people headed for a table.
“Don’t really know,” the Doctor replies, his nose practically rubbing against the Geiger counter he’s got it held so close to his face. “The Usarians can take on so many forms, it’s hard to tell what exactly it is, but if my guess is correct, and I warn you I’m hardly ever wrong, then we’re looking for it in humanoid form.”
She halts her steps, their connected arms stretching out in front of her as he’s pulled back. “What exactly do you mean by ‘humanoid’, Doctor?”
He stares at her for a moment before taking a step towards her. “We’re looking for an alien, Rose.” She sucks in a breath of air, and his hard features soften a little. “Are you okay with that, or do you want to leave?”
She swallows, the sound of people enjoying their meals still present. “I’m okay,” she says quietly, meeting his eye. “I want to help.”
She looks down their hands again, a thousand thoughts tumbling through her head before she looks back up at him. “You’re an alien too, aren’t you?”
He nods.
She takes a deep breath, thinking about how earlier this afternoon the only worries she’d had was if her hair had quite enough volume, and if her eye make-up matched Jean Shrimpton’s in her April issue of Vogue. “Okay,” she hears herself say. “Okay.”
He smiles, squeezing her hand in what she thinks might be affection. “Do you trust me, Rose Tyler?”
She looks at him, takes in his eyes that burn with a thousand possibilities and the way his hand seems to fit perfectly in hers, like they were always made to hold each others, and smiles.
“Yes,” she breathes. “I trust you.”
And so they run.