DW Fic - Simmer Dim (6/18)
Title - Simmer Dim (6/18)
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
John Smith sat at the bar in the Thule Bar and nursed his pint of Deuchars. He was here only because there was nowhere else to go. He didn’t want to go back to his rented cottage; it was cold and draughty and there was nothing in his fridge but a lump of old cheese and some oatcakes. At least here it was warm and there was beer, although there was little else that he liked about the place. The décor was tired and the food was never more than mediocre and the company nothing short of dull. Everyone he knew was here, though, and they would be here until the landlord or the police kicked them out or someone drained the pump dry.
He took a long sip of the pint in front of him, savouring the taste. Despite the fact that it was illegal to smoke in a public place, the air was thick with cigarette smoke - the landlord didn’t care and nobody here was about to report him to police for allowing it - and there was the low sound of laughter and talk. Groups were beginning to form around the tables and booths as people gathered together, sharing stories and jokes. Smith would be required to join up with them if he stayed much longer, so he picked up his pint and slipped out through the side door.
It was still mizzling outside, though it was light enough for the streetlights to not yet have switched themselves on. Hopeful gulls wheeled and cried in the sky above and he cast a speculative look down the street. More men were turning towards the pub and he saw Jackie Cartwright and Finn MacDonald among them. He ducked into the alleyway, hoping to avoid them both - the last thing he wanted was to get those two thugs on his trail - and perched himself on the top of the grit tank.
Long minutes passed as he listened to the increasingly rowdy atmosphere within the pub. Pretty soon things would start to get volatile and people would start leaving, either because they were being thrown out or because they’d found one of the girls from the town to take back and get laid with. He stared up at the sky, watching as the midsummer daylight still shone vaguely through the cloud cover. He felt like he’d been in this town his whole life, staring at the skies and wondering in a dim kind of way what the hell he was doing here.
“Now then, Smith,” came a voice from behind him and he turned to look who it was.
It was Greg Garriock, a bloke from the town he knew from way back. Garriock was one of the good ones, who avoided the fights and tended to steer clear of the arguments. He was drunk tonight, though, as Smith could smell it on his breath and see it in the waver of his green eyes as he walked up to him. “All right, Greg?” he asked.
“Aye, not bad, not bad. You?”
Smith snorted. “Been better.” He took another drink of his beer. “But there’s isn’t much else round these parts.”
Garriock nodded and leaned against the grimy wall. “That’s true enough,” he admitted. He angled his head back towards the bar. “Things are getting hot in there now. Cartwright and MacDonald walked in a few minutes ago and you know what those two are like when they’ve had a few jugs.”
“Those two are idiots,” Smith said dismissively.
“And you’re right to step out of there… You know what’s good for you, I’ll give you that, Smith.”
“Aye, well, I’ve got a wee bit o’ brain in my head, thank you very much.”
It was true. John Smith was a man whose reputation preceded him. His job didn’t demand too much in the way of intelligence, but he was known to be someone who had a skill and sense far above the usual level for a fisherman. He was adept, witty and brave - someone you could count on in an emergency to think quick and act fast. And people admired him for that, even if they didn’t choose to socialise with him.
“I say, did you see Elaine was down here? You know, that girl you were talking to last week?”
Smith squinted at his companion. “The blonde one?”
“That’s the one. She was asking about you.”
“Humph,” Smith replied and looked into the bottom of his nearly empty glass. “And what about Melissa, your love ‘em and leave ‘em brunette? You were after her again, weren’t you? She was in there a while ago.”
Garriock gave a low, wry chuckle. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. She’s a good girl.”
“Go ask her if she’ll let you buy her a drink, then…” he suggested.
The chuckle became an exclamation of dismissal and Garriock replied, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t have the guts.”
“The guts?” questioned Smith. “You’re joking, right?”
“Huh, I don’t see you turning on the charm, Mr. fucking Casanova! Why don’t you go in there and do the same?”
Smith did not reply to that. He leaned back against the wall and swirled the last few mouthfuls of beer around his glass, then tipped it down his throat. It was all very well and good talking about the prospective females to be had around town, but when it came down to it, Smith really wasn’t that interested. Of course, he wasn’t a monk: he’d had his share of women over the years, but it wasn’t something that particularly burned at his core. When the other men were going silly over some girl in a short skirt, he preferred to stand and wait till someone came to him. It was a tactic that meant the women he’d taken home tended to be quiet, less brash individuals, but it also led to a lot of lonely nights. And that was the thing that really bit.
Garriock seemed to have taken his lack of an answer as acceptance and he chuckled throatily again. “Want another drink, Smith?” he asked. “And then we can sit out here a bit longer and drown our godforsaken sorrows some more.”
He nodded. “Okay…”
His friend turned towards the bar and then stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “You know, maybe I will speak to her while I’m in there. What’s the worst she can do?”
Smith arched his eyebrow, then grinned at Garriock’s shocked expression and, finally, laughed. “Go on, Greg,” he said and waved him towards the bar. “I’m drinking Deuchars, by the way… and don’t be too long in there!” he added in a shout.
He listened to Garriock’s footsteps fade away and the slam of the side door as he re-entered the pub. Evening was beginning to draw in now and a glance at his watch told him it was nearly nine o’clock. Another couple of hours, he thought, and he could leave. If he went home before he’d had a few more pints he knew damn well that he wouldn’t sleep and would spend the majority of the night pacing the kitchen tearing at his hair.
It didn’t seem to matter how much he worked during the day, Smith was a chronic insomniac. He’d even been to the doctors about it, but all they’d done was to prescribe him some horse pills that knocked him for six but also left him woozy and a little uncoordinated the next day, neither of which he could afford to be while out at sea. And so he used drink to dull himself into a sleepy stupor. Three or four beers, plus a couple of whiskies, and he was set up for the night.
Tonight, though, he’d had just two, and the warmth had yet to penetrate his brain. He shivered and realised that by sitting outside he’d ended up getting pretty wet. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead and his coat was covered with a sheen of rain. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed - he was going to have to go back inside, or else he’d end up drinking more than he could really tolerate. Slowly, he unfolded his lanky frame and headed back through the side door.
The pub was livelier than it’d been when he left it before. Several of the fishermen he knew from the trawlers were propping the bar up in various stages of intoxication and the jukebox was playing Tears For Fears again. He caught sight of Garriock ordering two pints and a glass of red wine and angled his head around to see Melissa sitting in one of the booths by the door. She was dressed in jeans and a black shirt and was playing with her hair a little nervously. He smiled as Garriock picked up one of the pints and passed it to him. “There you go,” he said. He glanced back at Melissa. “Wish me luck, eh?”
Smith smiled at his friend and accepted the beer. He eased himself onto a stool at the far end of the bar and sat back to drink. Only another couple of hours, he thought.
After a few moments of studying the consistency of the foam head on his beer, he heard the main door slam shut and a rush of cool air hit his back. He turned, instinctively, and looked toward the sound. Perhaps it was the police coming to make sure the evening was still progressing smoothly. But instead of a black and fluorescent yellow bobby, he saw something quite unusual.
A blonde woman was standing in the doorway looking utterly lost. Everything about her was incongruous with the shabbiness of the Thule Bar. She wore expensive blue jeans, high heeled boots and what looked like a grey cashmere sweater. A raincoat was draped over her arm and she shook rain from a retractable umbrella, peering through the hustle of brawny men with a set of eyes that looked as if they’d seen the world and then a bit more. She had the sort of figure that he’d come to regard as perfect over the years - not too skinny, not too fat - with curves that made him want to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
He stared for a long moment, watching her searching dark eyes travel around the room. She looked vulnerable, yet there was something about her that spoke of a tremendous inner strength, as if she could have defended herself easily against any of the over-muscled, over-sexed men who now began to look in her direction.
Lee Baldwin started towards her in his usual greasy manner and Smith cringed into his pint. If there was one bloke who was bound to hit on anyone new who walked into the Thule, it was Baldwin. Smith looked sideways as Baldwin ushered her, bowing slightly, to the bar. He smiled and offered to buy her a drink, but the woman declined. Instead, she ordered her own, a glass of what looked like apple juice, and leaned over the bar to talk to the landlord. He caught snatches of her conversation, something about a photograph and a fisherman and then, unmistakably, the word ‘Torchwood’. The landlord shook his head several times, then waved his arms in a room-encompassing gesture and grinned. It was clear that the woman had asked him about somebody, thought Smith, and couldn’t help the feeling of jealousy that ran through him. Which lucky bastard was she looking for? She turned away from the bar and began to scan around the pub. Her eyes fell on faces left and right and Smith suddenly found himself hunkering down further over his pint and letting his hair fall partially in front of his face, though he didn’t quite know why he was doing it.
After a moment, and out of the corner of his eye, Smith saw her slip away from the bar and begin to walk towards Garriock and Melissa, who were engaged in an intimate conversation in their booth. He relaxed a little and watched as she pulled out what looked to be a photograph and showed it to Garriock, then frowned as he saw a look of shock pass across his friend’s face. Garriock said something, looked up and fixed him with a set of amused but questioning eyes.
Smith felt his blood run cold. My God, he thought, she was looking for him.
“Smith!” yelled Garriock across the room. “Get over here!”
He feinted looking up from his pint at the sound of his name and met his friend’s eyes. But it was not the look on Garriock’s face that stopped him dead. It was the look on the woman’s face.
She was staring straight at him and her eyes were wide with shock. Her face seemed to have frozen half way between the emotions of fear and surprise and he noticed that the hand she’d raised to her chest was shaking slightly. “Oh my God,” he heard her mutter. She turned pale in an instant and it would have been obvious to even the thickest fucker in the place that she’d just laid eyes on something that was overwhelmingly important to her.
Him. Smith… John Joseph Smith, 39, born and bred in this grey town, was somehow important to this beautiful woman.
He stared back. What the bloody hell was going on? He didn’t know her from Adam and he’d sure as hell never seen her round these parts before.
With slow, slightly faltering steps, she moved her way through the crowded pub towards him. When she was standing directly in front of him, she looked him right in the eyes and Smith felt something close around his stomach and squeeze in what was the strangest feeling he’d ever experienced. She was stunning, he realised. Her hand slowly reached up and touched his scruffy cheek and Smith suddenly wished he’d bothered to shave before he came out. Her touch was impossibly gentle. Her mouth opened and closed vaguely a couple of times, then she murmured,
“Doctor?”
He frowned at her and her hand fell away. Belatedly, he realised that there were tears in her eyes and, at his incomprehension, they slipped down her cheeks. Her eyes wavered and Smith suddenly realised that she was going to faint. He grabbed out and caught her just as she began to fall and then looked around. The entire room had gone silent, and Lee Baldwin, Jackie Cartwright and Finn MacDonald were staring at him. “What the fuck have you done, Smith?” said Cartwright.
To be continued...
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
John Smith sat at the bar in the Thule Bar and nursed his pint of Deuchars. He was here only because there was nowhere else to go. He didn’t want to go back to his rented cottage; it was cold and draughty and there was nothing in his fridge but a lump of old cheese and some oatcakes. At least here it was warm and there was beer, although there was little else that he liked about the place. The décor was tired and the food was never more than mediocre and the company nothing short of dull. Everyone he knew was here, though, and they would be here until the landlord or the police kicked them out or someone drained the pump dry.
He took a long sip of the pint in front of him, savouring the taste. Despite the fact that it was illegal to smoke in a public place, the air was thick with cigarette smoke - the landlord didn’t care and nobody here was about to report him to police for allowing it - and there was the low sound of laughter and talk. Groups were beginning to form around the tables and booths as people gathered together, sharing stories and jokes. Smith would be required to join up with them if he stayed much longer, so he picked up his pint and slipped out through the side door.
It was still mizzling outside, though it was light enough for the streetlights to not yet have switched themselves on. Hopeful gulls wheeled and cried in the sky above and he cast a speculative look down the street. More men were turning towards the pub and he saw Jackie Cartwright and Finn MacDonald among them. He ducked into the alleyway, hoping to avoid them both - the last thing he wanted was to get those two thugs on his trail - and perched himself on the top of the grit tank.
Long minutes passed as he listened to the increasingly rowdy atmosphere within the pub. Pretty soon things would start to get volatile and people would start leaving, either because they were being thrown out or because they’d found one of the girls from the town to take back and get laid with. He stared up at the sky, watching as the midsummer daylight still shone vaguely through the cloud cover. He felt like he’d been in this town his whole life, staring at the skies and wondering in a dim kind of way what the hell he was doing here.
“Now then, Smith,” came a voice from behind him and he turned to look who it was.
It was Greg Garriock, a bloke from the town he knew from way back. Garriock was one of the good ones, who avoided the fights and tended to steer clear of the arguments. He was drunk tonight, though, as Smith could smell it on his breath and see it in the waver of his green eyes as he walked up to him. “All right, Greg?” he asked.
“Aye, not bad, not bad. You?”
Smith snorted. “Been better.” He took another drink of his beer. “But there’s isn’t much else round these parts.”
Garriock nodded and leaned against the grimy wall. “That’s true enough,” he admitted. He angled his head back towards the bar. “Things are getting hot in there now. Cartwright and MacDonald walked in a few minutes ago and you know what those two are like when they’ve had a few jugs.”
“Those two are idiots,” Smith said dismissively.
“And you’re right to step out of there… You know what’s good for you, I’ll give you that, Smith.”
“Aye, well, I’ve got a wee bit o’ brain in my head, thank you very much.”
It was true. John Smith was a man whose reputation preceded him. His job didn’t demand too much in the way of intelligence, but he was known to be someone who had a skill and sense far above the usual level for a fisherman. He was adept, witty and brave - someone you could count on in an emergency to think quick and act fast. And people admired him for that, even if they didn’t choose to socialise with him.
“I say, did you see Elaine was down here? You know, that girl you were talking to last week?”
Smith squinted at his companion. “The blonde one?”
“That’s the one. She was asking about you.”
“Humph,” Smith replied and looked into the bottom of his nearly empty glass. “And what about Melissa, your love ‘em and leave ‘em brunette? You were after her again, weren’t you? She was in there a while ago.”
Garriock gave a low, wry chuckle. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. She’s a good girl.”
“Go ask her if she’ll let you buy her a drink, then…” he suggested.
The chuckle became an exclamation of dismissal and Garriock replied, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t have the guts.”
“The guts?” questioned Smith. “You’re joking, right?”
“Huh, I don’t see you turning on the charm, Mr. fucking Casanova! Why don’t you go in there and do the same?”
Smith did not reply to that. He leaned back against the wall and swirled the last few mouthfuls of beer around his glass, then tipped it down his throat. It was all very well and good talking about the prospective females to be had around town, but when it came down to it, Smith really wasn’t that interested. Of course, he wasn’t a monk: he’d had his share of women over the years, but it wasn’t something that particularly burned at his core. When the other men were going silly over some girl in a short skirt, he preferred to stand and wait till someone came to him. It was a tactic that meant the women he’d taken home tended to be quiet, less brash individuals, but it also led to a lot of lonely nights. And that was the thing that really bit.
Garriock seemed to have taken his lack of an answer as acceptance and he chuckled throatily again. “Want another drink, Smith?” he asked. “And then we can sit out here a bit longer and drown our godforsaken sorrows some more.”
He nodded. “Okay…”
His friend turned towards the bar and then stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “You know, maybe I will speak to her while I’m in there. What’s the worst she can do?”
Smith arched his eyebrow, then grinned at Garriock’s shocked expression and, finally, laughed. “Go on, Greg,” he said and waved him towards the bar. “I’m drinking Deuchars, by the way… and don’t be too long in there!” he added in a shout.
He listened to Garriock’s footsteps fade away and the slam of the side door as he re-entered the pub. Evening was beginning to draw in now and a glance at his watch told him it was nearly nine o’clock. Another couple of hours, he thought, and he could leave. If he went home before he’d had a few more pints he knew damn well that he wouldn’t sleep and would spend the majority of the night pacing the kitchen tearing at his hair.
It didn’t seem to matter how much he worked during the day, Smith was a chronic insomniac. He’d even been to the doctors about it, but all they’d done was to prescribe him some horse pills that knocked him for six but also left him woozy and a little uncoordinated the next day, neither of which he could afford to be while out at sea. And so he used drink to dull himself into a sleepy stupor. Three or four beers, plus a couple of whiskies, and he was set up for the night.
Tonight, though, he’d had just two, and the warmth had yet to penetrate his brain. He shivered and realised that by sitting outside he’d ended up getting pretty wet. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead and his coat was covered with a sheen of rain. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed - he was going to have to go back inside, or else he’d end up drinking more than he could really tolerate. Slowly, he unfolded his lanky frame and headed back through the side door.
The pub was livelier than it’d been when he left it before. Several of the fishermen he knew from the trawlers were propping the bar up in various stages of intoxication and the jukebox was playing Tears For Fears again. He caught sight of Garriock ordering two pints and a glass of red wine and angled his head around to see Melissa sitting in one of the booths by the door. She was dressed in jeans and a black shirt and was playing with her hair a little nervously. He smiled as Garriock picked up one of the pints and passed it to him. “There you go,” he said. He glanced back at Melissa. “Wish me luck, eh?”
Smith smiled at his friend and accepted the beer. He eased himself onto a stool at the far end of the bar and sat back to drink. Only another couple of hours, he thought.
After a few moments of studying the consistency of the foam head on his beer, he heard the main door slam shut and a rush of cool air hit his back. He turned, instinctively, and looked toward the sound. Perhaps it was the police coming to make sure the evening was still progressing smoothly. But instead of a black and fluorescent yellow bobby, he saw something quite unusual.
A blonde woman was standing in the doorway looking utterly lost. Everything about her was incongruous with the shabbiness of the Thule Bar. She wore expensive blue jeans, high heeled boots and what looked like a grey cashmere sweater. A raincoat was draped over her arm and she shook rain from a retractable umbrella, peering through the hustle of brawny men with a set of eyes that looked as if they’d seen the world and then a bit more. She had the sort of figure that he’d come to regard as perfect over the years - not too skinny, not too fat - with curves that made him want to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
He stared for a long moment, watching her searching dark eyes travel around the room. She looked vulnerable, yet there was something about her that spoke of a tremendous inner strength, as if she could have defended herself easily against any of the over-muscled, over-sexed men who now began to look in her direction.
Lee Baldwin started towards her in his usual greasy manner and Smith cringed into his pint. If there was one bloke who was bound to hit on anyone new who walked into the Thule, it was Baldwin. Smith looked sideways as Baldwin ushered her, bowing slightly, to the bar. He smiled and offered to buy her a drink, but the woman declined. Instead, she ordered her own, a glass of what looked like apple juice, and leaned over the bar to talk to the landlord. He caught snatches of her conversation, something about a photograph and a fisherman and then, unmistakably, the word ‘Torchwood’. The landlord shook his head several times, then waved his arms in a room-encompassing gesture and grinned. It was clear that the woman had asked him about somebody, thought Smith, and couldn’t help the feeling of jealousy that ran through him. Which lucky bastard was she looking for? She turned away from the bar and began to scan around the pub. Her eyes fell on faces left and right and Smith suddenly found himself hunkering down further over his pint and letting his hair fall partially in front of his face, though he didn’t quite know why he was doing it.
After a moment, and out of the corner of his eye, Smith saw her slip away from the bar and begin to walk towards Garriock and Melissa, who were engaged in an intimate conversation in their booth. He relaxed a little and watched as she pulled out what looked to be a photograph and showed it to Garriock, then frowned as he saw a look of shock pass across his friend’s face. Garriock said something, looked up and fixed him with a set of amused but questioning eyes.
Smith felt his blood run cold. My God, he thought, she was looking for him.
“Smith!” yelled Garriock across the room. “Get over here!”
He feinted looking up from his pint at the sound of his name and met his friend’s eyes. But it was not the look on Garriock’s face that stopped him dead. It was the look on the woman’s face.
She was staring straight at him and her eyes were wide with shock. Her face seemed to have frozen half way between the emotions of fear and surprise and he noticed that the hand she’d raised to her chest was shaking slightly. “Oh my God,” he heard her mutter. She turned pale in an instant and it would have been obvious to even the thickest fucker in the place that she’d just laid eyes on something that was overwhelmingly important to her.
Him. Smith… John Joseph Smith, 39, born and bred in this grey town, was somehow important to this beautiful woman.
He stared back. What the bloody hell was going on? He didn’t know her from Adam and he’d sure as hell never seen her round these parts before.
With slow, slightly faltering steps, she moved her way through the crowded pub towards him. When she was standing directly in front of him, she looked him right in the eyes and Smith felt something close around his stomach and squeeze in what was the strangest feeling he’d ever experienced. She was stunning, he realised. Her hand slowly reached up and touched his scruffy cheek and Smith suddenly wished he’d bothered to shave before he came out. Her touch was impossibly gentle. Her mouth opened and closed vaguely a couple of times, then she murmured,
“Doctor?”
He frowned at her and her hand fell away. Belatedly, he realised that there were tears in her eyes and, at his incomprehension, they slipped down her cheeks. Her eyes wavered and Smith suddenly realised that she was going to faint. He grabbed out and caught her just as she began to fall and then looked around. The entire room had gone silent, and Lee Baldwin, Jackie Cartwright and Finn MacDonald were staring at him. “What the fuck have you done, Smith?” said Cartwright.
To be continued...