Fic - "Lessons in Happiness" (1/1)
Title: Lessons in Happiness
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ten, Rose, Jackie
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: As if.
Summary: Five moments in the Doctor and Rose's life post-reunion. Not a serious fic - purely written to be a happy story!
A/N: Written entirely for the lovely Katherine (elegant_pepper), who wanted happy Doomsday fix-it fic and who got me writing again with the following prompts: high heels, five o'clock shadow, and a hug where Rose ties her legs around the Doctor's waist. I hope you like it!!
It’s not the first time she’s knocked all the wind out of him, but it feels like it.
She barrels into him, leaping up and wrapping her legs around his waist with such enthusiasm that he’s knocked back a couple of paces and mentally congratulates himself on staying upright. She’s lost her shoes somewhere behind him in the process, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed.
"Well, hello to you too," he says, the intended sarcasm of the remark crumbling under the barely restrained fondness and elation in his voice.
"Hello," she laughs, astounded that she can still talk.
The Doctor sets her back on her feet and she looks down in embarrassment, wondering how much he's changed and if it could be considered inappropriate to hug someone you haven't seen for three years in such a manner. All the same, she refuses to let go of him and takes strength from the force of his grip on her. Nothing's going to tear them apart this time.
"I found you, then."
Rose tilts her head back to look at him, bringing a hand up to follow her eyes and trace the line of his jaw with two trembling fingers. She can’t quite believe she’s just heard him speak. Twice. She spouts off the first thing that comes into her head, desperate to hear his voice again after so long without it. "Look at you, all five o’clock shadowed." Her voice drops ever so slightly in volume, allowing some melancholy to drip into her light teasing. "You look so much older…"
"Travel all the way across the universe to find her and what does she say to me? Look at you, all five o’clock shadowed," he mimics in a bad imitation of Rose’s accent, eyes dancing with laughter. "And then she tells me I look old!"
Rose pulls her lip in and bites on it, a sure sign that she’s trying not to laugh. "Well, Doctor, you are more nine hundred years older than me," she tells him in all seriousness. "You can’t expect that moisturiser to work forever."
He pouts slightly and pretends she hasn’t spoken. "It’s more of a 2am shadow than anything else," he informs her haughtily, picky as ever. Then all comedy leaves his tone and his eyes soften. "I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Rose Tyler."
She goes bright pink and doesn’t know what to say anymore, but he promptly solves that problem by kissing her instead.
"By the way," he interjects suddenly, tearing his lips from hers, and Rose thinks that this had bloody better well be a life-or-death type of aside. "Nice shoes."
She smacks his arm. "Shut up."
--
None of them had any idea he’d come back. In fact, when Jackie bursts into Rose’s room the next morning, the picture of motherly whirlwind efficiency, she promptly drops her tea offering all over the expensive carpet, wincing as the cup makes a dull thud on contact with the floor.
She still can’t get used to the idea that the carpet in here cost more than her entire furniture collection on the other Earth put together. She should really clean it up - or get one of the staff to do it for her, but she feels so out-of-place ordering them around that she only keeps them on because she hasn’t the heart to put them out of a job - but she can’t bring herself to disturb the couple on the bed.
Rose is still in her evening dress from the party they’d held the night before, her heels scattered hap-hazardly about the room, lying over the duvet and all wrapped up in the Doctor instead.
If she’d had another teacup, Jackie’s sure she would have dropped that one too.
It’s almost hard to see where one ends and the other begins, such is the similarity in colour of her dress and his awful new suit (where did he pick that up from? She hopes he didn’t pay a lot; it definitely wasn’t worth it). Rose’s legs are all tangled up with his, her arms clutching him tightly even in sleep as though terrified he’s going to disappear once again. The Doctor looks older, somehow, with the beginnings of stubble across his jaw and more lines on his forehead, but even he has the slightest smile on his face as he holds her daughter, one arm securely around her waist and the other resting lightly in her hair.
Her daughter - her eldest daughter, now she has two and another on the way, and that’s taken some getting used to and all - in bed with a nine-hundred-year-old, distinctly rumpled alien.
She doesn’t shout. And why would she? The truth is, she’s not angry. She never was. It just hurts to see Rose so young and in love when Jackie knows from personal experience how easily it can be taken away in a normal life, let alone in one as dangerous as theirs.
She tiptoes out and closes the door softly behind her, grateful they kept their clothes on at least. Morning sickness or not, the Doctor naked is something she could really do without seeing.
--
"Right, open your eyes."
Rose, standing before him in a pair of brand new high-heels, does a little twirl and comes to a halt a turn-and-a-half later, wiggling her toes.
"What do you think?"
The Doctor sighs exaggeratedly. "Oh, did you have to?"
Her face falls slightly. "What, don’t you like them?"
"Oh, no, I do," he tells her, quickly and unconvincingly, adding, "No, really," in a slightly panicky tone when her eyes narrow. "But this means I’m going to have to take you out somewhere fancy for dinner, and I happen to know for a fact that all your sparkly dresses are in the wash."
The TARDIS grumbles in agreement. Rose, however, strides towards him with a squeak, throwing her arms around him and saying, "Thank you thank you thank you!" over and over again.
"I should never have told you about my unlimited intergalactic credit card. I could’ve sworn you weren’t this girly when we met." He grins. "Go on, go and find something pretty in the wardrobe. Er…" He pauses, tugging on his ear awkwardly. "Not that I am in any way shallow or encourage the idea that women are only around to be put in sparkly dresses and - "
"One condition," Rose interrupts, already half way out of the console room. "Shave first. You're all...scratchy." She wrinkes her nose.
The Doctor, having been cut off mid-rant, takes a second to realise she isn’t being complimentary. "Oi! There is nothing wrong with my stubble!" He pauses. "I’ve been thinking about growing a beard. What d’you reckon?" He raises his head to the ceiling in mock-thought, dragging his finger and thumb down the sides of his face and across his imaginary facial hair. "Would it make me look distinguished?"
Rose tries very, very hard not to laugh.
"What?" he asks, voice slightly higher than usual, sounding genuinely offended.
She clip-clops back up to him in her shiny new heels, impressively avoiding the holes in the grating - she’s going to have to teach him how she does that - and promptly kisses him on the cheek. "I don’t care what you look like," she insists, linking her fingers loosely through his, and he’s not sure whether to grin at the truth of this statement or look for some sort of veiled insult within it. "…As long as you promise me you will never, ever grow a beard."
She’s already half way to the corridor before he thinks of a reply, too put out to be any quicker.
"What about - "
"And if you even think about growing a Poirot moustache, you can take these heels to dinner by yourself," she calls nonchalantly over her shoulder, the sound of her shoes rapidly fading into the depths of their ship.
--
From the back, he can see it’s a pretty dress. It’s not until she turns around that she truly takes his breath away.
He shakes his head like a dog with water in its ears, positive she’s asked for his opinion but thoroughly unable to recount what she’s actually said.
"If every man in the room does not end the evening in love with you, then I am no judge of beauty," he quotes, all out of his own words. They both choose to ignore the fact that he is the only man in the room.
Rose grins, her tongue between her teeth, and he instantly regrets not mentally checking whether she’s read Pride & Prejudice or not. "Or men?" she teases, absently swirling the skirt of the dress around her ankles with her nervous hands. Dainty red Victorian shoes peep out from under the shimmering hem.
She’s so beautiful it actually hurts.
There’s an alien at the ball, of course, and when they’re separated all he can think about is how his last memory of her can’t be in that dress, however stunning she was. He needs to remember this evening untainted.
She rips the dress later, throwing her legs around his waist once more in a hug that makes the locals gasp, but neither of them can care.
--
It’s about 4am Earth time, beyond freezing and pouring it down with rain. Her heels don’t clip-clop as much as slip, but neither of them pay any attention to that as they dance and spin delightedly down the street, their laughter echoing up to the houses all around.
His fringe is plastered to his forehead in the most ridiculous manner, and her skirt - now sticking to her legs with the rain - stopped fanning out a good ten minutes ago. They’re getting the strangest of stares. This is their night, though, their world, and nothing can ruin this for them. No-one else even exists anymore.
"I love you," she whispers into his ear when he stops to spin her, and he responds with something so beautifully and exquisitely alien that it’s impossible not to know what he said.
Kissing and dancing at once is notoriously difficult, but they give it a damn good try.
Comment?