Don't Blink - 10/?
Title: Don't Blink - 10/?
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor?
Rating: PG
AN The lovely and talented ladychi had to bow out of this collaboration. She's very busy right now busy with work, school, writing, life in general, etc. It was a blast to work with her and hopefully we'll be able to try it again some day.
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~
Rose made quick work of the walk to her new job. The shop wasn’t far from their new flat, and the morning was pleasantly warm and sunny. For a moment, just a moment, Rose was able to imagine that she was home, in her proper time, going to work. She pretended that life was normal again, and that her mum was still at their flat, dressed in her pink chenille bathrobe and with her hair in curlers, chatting on the phone. But then a car drove by, an old Ford that was old even for 1969, and she remembered that she wasn’t where she belonged at the moment.
But it wasn’t the first time for that, not by a long shot. The Doctor would sort things out and have them back home in no time. Rose resolved to enjoy herself in the meantime, and trust in the Doctor.
She reached the shop right at 8:30, and Iris was there immediately to unlock the door and let her in.
“Good morning!” Iris said cheerfully. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Rose followed her new boss to the back room, where she was shown where to put her bag and coat.
“It’s just the two of us today,” Iris explained as she handed Rose a discreet golden pin. “I have a couple of girls help out in the evenings after school. They come in on Saturday if things get really busy.”
Rose was fiddling with the pin. It was in the shape of a sun, about two inches across.
“Here.” Iris opened the back and showed her how to fasten it to her top. “It’s our store logo.”
Rose fastened the pin gingerly, hoping it wouldn’t make holes in her dress. She was surprised to see that it left no mark.
“Usually nametags ruin your top,” she commented.
“It’s something new that the owner created. It won’t put holes in your clothes.”
“It’s nice.” Rose straightened the pin.
“Come on,” Iris said. “Let’s show you how to work the till.”
The morning passed quickly. It was amazing how easily it all came back to Rose. Dealing with customers, putting away new inventory, working the till. It helped that things in 1969 were a lot simpler, she thought wryly. No computers, just an old metal cash register. They accepted cash and checks. A few choice customers had store accounts, and Iris took care of those people herself.
Even the phone was nice and easy, Rose thought with a smile as it rang. Heavy and black, with a rotary dial. No voicemail system, no answerphone, no annoying phonetrees that prompted you to press your options.
“Good morning,” she said into the receiver. “Helio Fashions, Rose speaking.”
“Who?” a man’s voice demanded.
“This is Rose. Can I help you?”
“I don’t know any Rose. Put Iris on the phone.”
Rose held the phone out to Iris, who happened to be standing beside her. “It’s for you.”
Iris was on the phone for a while, nodding and scribbling things down on a pad of paper. Rose had helped three customers and straightened out the fitting room by the time Iris got off the phone.
“Sorry about that,” she said to Rose when the shop was empty. “That was Mr. Troy. He owns the shop.”
“Oh.” Rose felt a bit foolish. “I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t say who he was, did he? That’s typical. He’s a bit gruff sometimes, but don’t worry about him. He had some information to give me. You’ll meet him soon enough. Now.” Iris glanced at her watch. “It’s almost noon. Are you ready for your lunch break?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Actually...” Iris paused and looked around. The shop was empty, and she gave Rose a conspiratorial smile. “Let’s lock up and go have lunch together.”
“Is that okay?” Rose was surprised into asking. Normally you wouldn’t just close up in the middle of the day.
“It is today,” Iris decided. “I feel like a sandwich. How about you?”
Rose didn’t have to think about it. “I’d love some chips!”
Lunch was fast but pleasant. Iris was a few years older than Rose but friendly and outgoing. Rose reckoned that as long as Iris wasn’t one of those girls who was friendly one day and catty the next, she’d be fine.
The afternoon passed quickly. She had to learn how to tag new inventory and hang it up, how to run the register and write up a bank slip for the evening’s deposit, and learn what items the store carried so that when she was asked a question she didn’t look foolish.
In the middle of all of this, though, she still found time to be distracted.
“What are you watching for?” Iris asked as she walked up to the front counter.
Rose had been checking off a shipping manifest, marking items that had arrived with their packing slip. She glanced up at Iris.
“What?”
Iris smiled and nodded to the door. “What are you looking for? Every time I look up, you’re looking out the window.”
Rose blushed and hurriedly turned back to her packing slip. “It’s nothing,” she murmured. “Just daydreaming.”
Five o’clock came at last. Iris locked the doors, quickly counted up the till, and sent Rose home.
“Don’t you want me to help clean up?” Rose asked in surprise.
Iris shook her head. “I can take care of it. You go on home.”
Rose gathered her bag and was out the door in a flash. Without even needing to think about it, she headed back to the flat. The entryway was empty, she noted, and there was no landlady peering out from an open door. Skipping up the stairs, she unlocked the door to their flat, trying not to think about the last time she unlocked the TARDIS with her key.
“Doctor?” she called. “I’m home!”
There was no answer. Walking inside, she saw that the flat was empty. There were some crumpled up sheets of paper on the coffee table, but the kitchen had been neatly, if somewhat haphazardly, picked up.
“Doctor?”
Rose stood in the kitchen for a moment. She didn’t think he’d be in the bedroom, but she checked it just the same. The room looked just as it had when she’d left it that morning. She slowly opened the curtains to let some light in and walked back to the living room. No Doctor. Feeling a bit silly, she placed a hand on the television set. It wasn’t warm, so he’d been gone a while.
Rose was surprised by how disappointed she felt. “Right,” she said out loud. “No sense in staying here alone. Especially when there’s not a lot of food.”
Locking the door behind her, she headed back out to find the nearest fast food place.
The Doctor had barely finished his midmorning tea when there was a knock on the door. He had no need to be fearful or suspicious, but he made sure the sonic screwdriver was in his pocket all the same.
He opened the door, took in a tall man with dark hair, and said hello.
“Morning! I’m Jeff. Live down the hall.” The man indicated the direction with a nod of his head. “Saw you move in the other night. You and that pretty blonde.”
“That’s Rose,” the Doctor said, more sharply than was perhaps necessary. This was the shifty neighbor, the one who’d been watching over his shoulder as he’d gone up the stairs.
“Rose,” Jeff repeated thoughtfully. “She not your sister or anything, is she?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” the Doctor said, even more sharply than before. “She’s not my sister.” He did not elaborate, partly because it was not this bloke’s business, and partly because his brain veered away from any thoughts about what Rose might be to him. Things were difficult enough at the moment without making himself crazy over that.
“I get it. All right!” Jeff smiled and leaned in close. “I won’t say a word to the landlady, then, mate. Just between us, eh?”
The Doctor truly did not know how to respond to this. He would not tolerate anyone making rude aspersions about Rose, but this man hadn’t exactly done so. Jeff started talking again while the Doctor was wrestling with this.
“Anyway, just wanted to make sure you were settled in okay.”
The Doctor forced himself to nod in a genial, friendly manner. “We are, thanks.”
“Rose at work than?” Jeff continued, peering around the Doctor and into the flat.
“She is, yes.” The Doctor wondered at what point he could close the door and be left alone again. Sally Sparrow’s papers were beckoning him.
“How about you? You out of work right now? That’s rough.”
“I’m not out of work,” the Doctor said testily. “I’m a...student.”
“A student. You look a bit old to be a student.”
“Graduate student,” the Doctor said repressively.
“Yeah? Which uni?” Jeff continued, obviously determined to wring all the information he could from this encounter.
The Doctor sighed to himself and covertly pointed his sonic screwdriver into the room behind him. The telephone rang, and he smiled brightly at his new neighbor.
“Must get that. Nice to meet you. See you again soon. Bye!”
He picked up the telephone receiver and set it back in the cradle again. Normally he loved talking with humans, but he was a bit - a small bit, hardly noticeable, really - on edge. He hadn’t gotten the address for Rose’s shop, for one thing, and wasn’t sure where she was working. She had mentioned the name and he could of course go looking for it, but she might think that he was checking up on her,and she was more than capable of looking after herself.
And for another thing, well, he was trapped without his TARDIS. Not only trapped, but the TARDIS could be used to potentially cause a great deal of devastation if he didn’t get it out of the hands of the Weeping Angels. A bit of a dilemma, that.
And why couldn’t Rose have said he was a professor? A student was so...demeaning. There were any number of things he could have pretended to be. An eccentric millionaire, for example. Or an MP. Or an astronaut.
A sudden spate of yelling from the hallway outside diverted his thoughts. The yelling was followed by a deafening crash. Grabbing his coat, the Doctor bolted out of the flat, looking wildly in all directions.
Rose walked back down the stairs, swinging her bag and trying not to feel so let down that the Doctor was gone. He might have made an important discovery about getting them home. Or maybe they were out of milk and he’d made an emergency run to the shop.
Her thoughts stopped as the object of them bounded up the stairs towards her. The Doctor looked up at her, smiling in delight.
“Rose! You’re home!” He caught her up in a big hug, lifting her a few inches off the ground.
Rose giggled and clung to him, the stress of the day disappearing in an instant.
“I’m home! Miss me?”
He set her back on her feet and smiled down at her. “Of course. How was your day?”
“All right. Bit of a learning curve and all, but I did okay. Iris says I can start making commission after next week.”
“Brilliant!” he pronounced, beaming proudly at her. “Anything exciting happen?”
“Well.” Rose thought for a moment. “We did have one woman come in, wanting to try on a dress in the window. It was about five sizes too small, but she was determined to have it.”
“How did it look?” he asked curiously.
She rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated shudder. “Let’s just hope her husband can convince her to bring it back!”
“What she needs,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, taking her hand and starting down the stairs, “is some sort of transdimensional fashion accessory. Makes even the smallest garments conform to your proper, actual size.”
“Invent that, you’d make a fortune, you would.”
“Don’t tempt me!”
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Weren’t you on your way home?”
“Nah. Well. I was heading back to wait for you, but since you’re here I don’t need to wait!”
She smiled. “Wait for what?”
He was one step ahead of her on the way down, making them almost equal in height. He glanced back at her with a grin.
“Dinner. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Eleven
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor?
Rating: PG
AN The lovely and talented ladychi had to bow out of this collaboration. She's very busy right now busy with work, school, writing, life in general, etc. It was a blast to work with her and hopefully we'll be able to try it again some day.
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~
Rose made quick work of the walk to her new job. The shop wasn’t far from their new flat, and the morning was pleasantly warm and sunny. For a moment, just a moment, Rose was able to imagine that she was home, in her proper time, going to work. She pretended that life was normal again, and that her mum was still at their flat, dressed in her pink chenille bathrobe and with her hair in curlers, chatting on the phone. But then a car drove by, an old Ford that was old even for 1969, and she remembered that she wasn’t where she belonged at the moment.
But it wasn’t the first time for that, not by a long shot. The Doctor would sort things out and have them back home in no time. Rose resolved to enjoy herself in the meantime, and trust in the Doctor.
She reached the shop right at 8:30, and Iris was there immediately to unlock the door and let her in.
“Good morning!” Iris said cheerfully. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Rose followed her new boss to the back room, where she was shown where to put her bag and coat.
“It’s just the two of us today,” Iris explained as she handed Rose a discreet golden pin. “I have a couple of girls help out in the evenings after school. They come in on Saturday if things get really busy.”
Rose was fiddling with the pin. It was in the shape of a sun, about two inches across.
“Here.” Iris opened the back and showed her how to fasten it to her top. “It’s our store logo.”
Rose fastened the pin gingerly, hoping it wouldn’t make holes in her dress. She was surprised to see that it left no mark.
“Usually nametags ruin your top,” she commented.
“It’s something new that the owner created. It won’t put holes in your clothes.”
“It’s nice.” Rose straightened the pin.
“Come on,” Iris said. “Let’s show you how to work the till.”
The morning passed quickly. It was amazing how easily it all came back to Rose. Dealing with customers, putting away new inventory, working the till. It helped that things in 1969 were a lot simpler, she thought wryly. No computers, just an old metal cash register. They accepted cash and checks. A few choice customers had store accounts, and Iris took care of those people herself.
Even the phone was nice and easy, Rose thought with a smile as it rang. Heavy and black, with a rotary dial. No voicemail system, no answerphone, no annoying phonetrees that prompted you to press your options.
“Good morning,” she said into the receiver. “Helio Fashions, Rose speaking.”
“Who?” a man’s voice demanded.
“This is Rose. Can I help you?”
“I don’t know any Rose. Put Iris on the phone.”
Rose held the phone out to Iris, who happened to be standing beside her. “It’s for you.”
Iris was on the phone for a while, nodding and scribbling things down on a pad of paper. Rose had helped three customers and straightened out the fitting room by the time Iris got off the phone.
“Sorry about that,” she said to Rose when the shop was empty. “That was Mr. Troy. He owns the shop.”
“Oh.” Rose felt a bit foolish. “I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t say who he was, did he? That’s typical. He’s a bit gruff sometimes, but don’t worry about him. He had some information to give me. You’ll meet him soon enough. Now.” Iris glanced at her watch. “It’s almost noon. Are you ready for your lunch break?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Actually...” Iris paused and looked around. The shop was empty, and she gave Rose a conspiratorial smile. “Let’s lock up and go have lunch together.”
“Is that okay?” Rose was surprised into asking. Normally you wouldn’t just close up in the middle of the day.
“It is today,” Iris decided. “I feel like a sandwich. How about you?”
Rose didn’t have to think about it. “I’d love some chips!”
Lunch was fast but pleasant. Iris was a few years older than Rose but friendly and outgoing. Rose reckoned that as long as Iris wasn’t one of those girls who was friendly one day and catty the next, she’d be fine.
The afternoon passed quickly. She had to learn how to tag new inventory and hang it up, how to run the register and write up a bank slip for the evening’s deposit, and learn what items the store carried so that when she was asked a question she didn’t look foolish.
In the middle of all of this, though, she still found time to be distracted.
“What are you watching for?” Iris asked as she walked up to the front counter.
Rose had been checking off a shipping manifest, marking items that had arrived with their packing slip. She glanced up at Iris.
“What?”
Iris smiled and nodded to the door. “What are you looking for? Every time I look up, you’re looking out the window.”
Rose blushed and hurriedly turned back to her packing slip. “It’s nothing,” she murmured. “Just daydreaming.”
Five o’clock came at last. Iris locked the doors, quickly counted up the till, and sent Rose home.
“Don’t you want me to help clean up?” Rose asked in surprise.
Iris shook her head. “I can take care of it. You go on home.”
Rose gathered her bag and was out the door in a flash. Without even needing to think about it, she headed back to the flat. The entryway was empty, she noted, and there was no landlady peering out from an open door. Skipping up the stairs, she unlocked the door to their flat, trying not to think about the last time she unlocked the TARDIS with her key.
“Doctor?” she called. “I’m home!”
There was no answer. Walking inside, she saw that the flat was empty. There were some crumpled up sheets of paper on the coffee table, but the kitchen had been neatly, if somewhat haphazardly, picked up.
“Doctor?”
Rose stood in the kitchen for a moment. She didn’t think he’d be in the bedroom, but she checked it just the same. The room looked just as it had when she’d left it that morning. She slowly opened the curtains to let some light in and walked back to the living room. No Doctor. Feeling a bit silly, she placed a hand on the television set. It wasn’t warm, so he’d been gone a while.
Rose was surprised by how disappointed she felt. “Right,” she said out loud. “No sense in staying here alone. Especially when there’s not a lot of food.”
Locking the door behind her, she headed back out to find the nearest fast food place.
The Doctor had barely finished his midmorning tea when there was a knock on the door. He had no need to be fearful or suspicious, but he made sure the sonic screwdriver was in his pocket all the same.
He opened the door, took in a tall man with dark hair, and said hello.
“Morning! I’m Jeff. Live down the hall.” The man indicated the direction with a nod of his head. “Saw you move in the other night. You and that pretty blonde.”
“That’s Rose,” the Doctor said, more sharply than was perhaps necessary. This was the shifty neighbor, the one who’d been watching over his shoulder as he’d gone up the stairs.
“Rose,” Jeff repeated thoughtfully. “She not your sister or anything, is she?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” the Doctor said, even more sharply than before. “She’s not my sister.” He did not elaborate, partly because it was not this bloke’s business, and partly because his brain veered away from any thoughts about what Rose might be to him. Things were difficult enough at the moment without making himself crazy over that.
“I get it. All right!” Jeff smiled and leaned in close. “I won’t say a word to the landlady, then, mate. Just between us, eh?”
The Doctor truly did not know how to respond to this. He would not tolerate anyone making rude aspersions about Rose, but this man hadn’t exactly done so. Jeff started talking again while the Doctor was wrestling with this.
“Anyway, just wanted to make sure you were settled in okay.”
The Doctor forced himself to nod in a genial, friendly manner. “We are, thanks.”
“Rose at work than?” Jeff continued, peering around the Doctor and into the flat.
“She is, yes.” The Doctor wondered at what point he could close the door and be left alone again. Sally Sparrow’s papers were beckoning him.
“How about you? You out of work right now? That’s rough.”
“I’m not out of work,” the Doctor said testily. “I’m a...student.”
“A student. You look a bit old to be a student.”
“Graduate student,” the Doctor said repressively.
“Yeah? Which uni?” Jeff continued, obviously determined to wring all the information he could from this encounter.
The Doctor sighed to himself and covertly pointed his sonic screwdriver into the room behind him. The telephone rang, and he smiled brightly at his new neighbor.
“Must get that. Nice to meet you. See you again soon. Bye!”
He picked up the telephone receiver and set it back in the cradle again. Normally he loved talking with humans, but he was a bit - a small bit, hardly noticeable, really - on edge. He hadn’t gotten the address for Rose’s shop, for one thing, and wasn’t sure where she was working. She had mentioned the name and he could of course go looking for it, but she might think that he was checking up on her,and she was more than capable of looking after herself.
And for another thing, well, he was trapped without his TARDIS. Not only trapped, but the TARDIS could be used to potentially cause a great deal of devastation if he didn’t get it out of the hands of the Weeping Angels. A bit of a dilemma, that.
And why couldn’t Rose have said he was a professor? A student was so...demeaning. There were any number of things he could have pretended to be. An eccentric millionaire, for example. Or an MP. Or an astronaut.
A sudden spate of yelling from the hallway outside diverted his thoughts. The yelling was followed by a deafening crash. Grabbing his coat, the Doctor bolted out of the flat, looking wildly in all directions.
Rose walked back down the stairs, swinging her bag and trying not to feel so let down that the Doctor was gone. He might have made an important discovery about getting them home. Or maybe they were out of milk and he’d made an emergency run to the shop.
Her thoughts stopped as the object of them bounded up the stairs towards her. The Doctor looked up at her, smiling in delight.
“Rose! You’re home!” He caught her up in a big hug, lifting her a few inches off the ground.
Rose giggled and clung to him, the stress of the day disappearing in an instant.
“I’m home! Miss me?”
He set her back on her feet and smiled down at her. “Of course. How was your day?”
“All right. Bit of a learning curve and all, but I did okay. Iris says I can start making commission after next week.”
“Brilliant!” he pronounced, beaming proudly at her. “Anything exciting happen?”
“Well.” Rose thought for a moment. “We did have one woman come in, wanting to try on a dress in the window. It was about five sizes too small, but she was determined to have it.”
“How did it look?” he asked curiously.
She rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated shudder. “Let’s just hope her husband can convince her to bring it back!”
“What she needs,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, taking her hand and starting down the stairs, “is some sort of transdimensional fashion accessory. Makes even the smallest garments conform to your proper, actual size.”
“Invent that, you’d make a fortune, you would.”
“Don’t tempt me!”
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Weren’t you on your way home?”
“Nah. Well. I was heading back to wait for you, but since you’re here I don’t need to wait!”
She smiled. “Wait for what?”
He was one step ahead of her on the way down, making them almost equal in height. He glanced back at her with a grin.
“Dinner. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Eleven