Title: Don't Blink - 33/?
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta:
nattieb (ch 1) (ch 2) (ch 3) (ch 4) (ch 5) (ch 6) (ch 7) (ch 8) (ch 9) (ch 10) (ch 11) (ch 12) (ch 13) (ch 14) (ch 15) (ch 16) (ch 17) (ch 18) (ch 19) (ch 20) (ch 21) (ch 22) (ch 23) (ch 24) (ch 25) (ch 26) (ch 27) (ch 28) (ch 29) (ch 30) (ch 31) (ch 32) As promised, the Doctor entered the shop just as day’s last customer was leaving, arms full of boxes. He held the door open for her and stepped inside.
“Hello,” Rose said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He frowned at her. “I told you I’d be here.”
“I know, but it’s so far away, I thought you wouldn’t make it.”
“Rose, that’s not nice to say,” he told her reproachfully.
“Don’t pay her any attention, John,” Iris called as she counted up the contents of the till. “She’s just had a bad day. Take her to dinner someplace nice.”
The Doctor turned back to Rose. “Did you have a bad day?”
“Just the usual sort of day.” Rose locked the door so no one else could enter. “Let me hang these dresses back up.”
The Doctor followed her to the dressing area, where one of the small rooms was draped in dresses.
“Good grief,” he said, startled by the display of messiness. “Did someone really leave it looking like that?”
Rose pulled a face. “That someone was the woman you held the door for. She spent lots of money but she left a huge mess.”
The Doctor made himself comfortable on one of the blue and yellow upholstered chairs.
“At least you made a nice commission on it, eh?” He propped his feet up on a matching stool nearby.
Rose came out of the dressing room with an armload of identical black dresses. She swatted at his leg as she passed him, making him scowl and lower his feet to the ground.
“Do you want some help?” he offered.
“Don’t be daft,” she said over her shoulder. “You’re useless in here, you are.”
He did not deny it. He occupied himself with looking around instead.
“Things are changing around here. I can tell thanks to my massive powers of observation.”
Iris smiled over at him. “Yes, that and the noise from next door.”
“It is a bit loud over there.”
“The customers aren’t too fond of it, either.” Iris finished writing up the day’s checks on the banking slip and began to count out the coins. “We’ve lost some business over this, but Mr. Troy doesn’t seem worried.”
“He’s more worried about finishing the shop,” Rose said as she made another pass through the dressing room. This time she carried a pile of green and yellow fabric, something soft and shiny that kept slipping out of her grasp.
“Let me help you,” the Doctor said again, and started to stand.
“I’ve got it,” Rose said again, and neatly evaded his attempts to take some of the clothing from her.
He let her keep it and followed her to the racks instead.
“How come it’s all the same dress?” he asked once she started to hang them up.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Tipton never takes our word for it when we bring her size back to her. She always says she’s at least once size smaller than she really is, so she tries on three or four of every style and gets mad that the dresses run too small. And then she buys the wrong size so she can say she’s small than she really is. Of course, then she has to take her clothes to a tailor to fit them right, so she always buys an extra dress so she has enough fabric.”
He was utterly fascinated by this look into the human female mind. “Does she really? All so she can say she’s a what, a ten instead of a twelve?”
“More like a twelve instead of a fourteen,” Rose said humorously. “On a good day.”
“It’s much cheaper to just buy the size that fits,” Iris added, “but we don’t make as much money that way.”
“So she buys two of everything and takes that to a tailor,” the Doctor mused out loud as Rose finished and went back to the dressing room for a third time. “She’s helping multiple businesses stay afloat. Amazing!”
“Conceited, more like.” Iris dumped the coins into the bank bag and let out an annoyed exclamation as some fell onto the floor.
A man’s head poked out from behind the plastic sheeting separating the shop from its future expansion.
“Did you say something?” he called.
“No!” Iris yelled from behind the counter.
“Are you closed, then?”
“Yes!” Iris stood up with her hands full of coins. “You have until I’m ready to go to turn your music up high enough to ruin our hearing.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “My music isn’t too loud!”
“It is so!” she snapped. “I can’t hear myself think, sometimes.”
“I’m amazed you can hear it at all, over the sound of my tools. Or the sound of your prim and proper voice.”
Iris drew in a breath, outraged, but as the man scowled at her he caught sight of the Doctor.
“Oh, hello!” He pushed the plastic aside and came out to shake the Doctor’s hand. “You must be Mr. Tyler! I’m Jim.”
The Doctor allowed Jim to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. Er, about that name-”
“You can call him John,” Rose said hastily from beside him. “No need to be formal among friends, is there?” She handed the Doctor a stack of shoe boxes. “Can you put those away for me? Over there, on the back wall.”
He threw her a suspicious glance but walked over to the shoes without another word. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
“Okay.”
“Did I get his name wrong?” Jim asked. “It’s Tyler, isn’t it?”
Women didn’t usually keep their maiden names when they married in this time and place. Jim’s assumption was perfectly innocent.
“It’s...complicated,” Rose said after a moment, and was spared any further inquiries about her so-called married state when Jim appeared to remember something.
“Will you ring up those two scarves I put aside this morning? Don’t let Iris lock up before I can pay her.” Jim disappeared to clean up his tools. She heard him turn his radio up, and Paul McCartney started to sing Get back to where you once belonged.
She snorted softly to herself. “I wish.”
The Doctor passed by her again on his way to the door. “Think I’ll pick up the paper at the shop across the street,” he said to Rose.
“I won’t be much longer,” she promised.
Jim finished up behind the curtain and carefully pulled the plastic sheets back together, as though worried that either Rose or Iris would attempt to look behind them.
He politely paid Rose for the scarves and requested that she wrap them up.
The look on Iris’s face did not bode well for Jim. Rose took over, wrapping the pieces of silk in tissue paper and then placing them in two blue and yellow boxes marked with a sunburst design.
“Do you want a bag for them?”
He carefully placed them under his arm. “Nah. My car’s not too far.” He set the boxes back on the counter so he could dig his car keys out from his pocket. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Rose said.
Iris paused, but finally gave him a stiff greeting as well. Jim grinned at them both before leaving.
“Iris, you are impossible!” Rose said before the door had closed all the way. “I think he likes you! Do you not like him?”
“It’s...complicated,” Iris said after hesitating for a moment, and Rose got a firsthand look at how ridiculous a comeback that way. She resolved to never say those words again.
“Well, I shouldn’t have said anything. I know it’s none of my business.”
They parted outside the shop, Iris to do some shopping and Rose to go home. The Doctor was waiting for her.
“Everything all right?” He took her bags from her and threaded his fingers through hers.
A deep sense of relief came over Rose, releasing tension she hadn’t been aware of feeling. She smiled up at him.
“Now it is.”
He insisted on going somewhere to eat - their kitchen wasn’t stocked with much food and neither one wanted to cook. By the time they were finished Rose was eager to go home, wash her face free of makeup, and watch Coronation Street on the telly.
“That sounds like a great idea,” the Doctor said enthusiastically. “Let’s get some snacks on the way.”
“Snacks? We just ate!”
“I’ll need something later on,” he assured her, and hustled her in to the closet shop to buy whatever nibbles he thought he would need to survive the next few hours.
Once in the flat Rose went directly to her room to change out of her mint green skirt and white blouse. As fashions went the outfit was fairly tame by her standards, even if the chevron stripes on the skirt in varying shades of green were not something she would have worn before.
Out of habit she checked the mobile phone sitting in the top drawer of the dresser. It was still fully charged and showed a signal. She dialed her mum’s number and listened to Jackie’s voice one more time. Either the mobile company hadn’t shut down the account or it existed in a sort of limbo, just as Rose was.
She hung up before Jackie’s voice was finished speaking - what was the point of leaving a message?
“I want to go home,” she told her reflection as she removed her earrings and bracelet. “I want to go home right now.”
Her reflection did not respond. Rose sighed and put on the grey sweats she’d been wearing when they’d landed in 1969. She pulled on a plain t-shirt, let the heart lock and key charms hang outside, and took her matching hoodie along just in case she got cold.
Out in the kitchen she could hear the Doctor rattling around.
“You almost finished?” he called out.
“Be right there! Turn the tv on!”
By the time Rose had washed the makeup off her face the Doctor had gone into the room to change his own clothes. The plain grey suit he’d worn to the university hung haphazardly from a hanger, the shirt and tie thrown on the floor.
As a matter of principle, Rose did not pick them up. She may have been in charge of the washing but she was not his maid. Even as she turned to leave the room something in her wavered. Bending down, she picked up the tie and tossed it in the wardrobe. She meant to put the shirt in the hamper, but she caught a faint whiff of the shaving cream he used in the morning. She brought the shirt up to her nose. It smelled like him, warm and familiar and just slightly out of place.
“Rose!” he yelled. “What are you doing?”
She dropped the shirt immediately, not wanting him to find her sniffing her dirty clothes like a mad stalker. “Coming!”
The Doctor had set out a tray containing crisps, popcorn and various bits of chocolate. There was more on the tray than the two of them would eat in a week.
“It’s Coronation Street,” he said by way of explanation when he encountered Rose’s stare. “You’ve got to live a little.”
She giggled and sat down on the couch beside him. The nights were starting to cool off, although they hadn’t had to turn the heat on yet. She wriggled into her hoodie and pulled the zip up halfway. The Doctor handed her a crisp.
“Mmm, thanks. Is it time?”
“Yep.” The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to turn the tv on. With his other hand he scooped up a handful of chips and leaned back against the cushions. He’d changed into plain trousers and a long-sleeved blue shirt. Rose was glad he was giving his suit a break but it was still a jolt sometimes to see him wearing such ordinary clothes.
As she looked more closer it seemed that it had been a long day for him. There were slight shadows under his eyes and his hair was mussed.
“Did you have a bad day, too?” she guessed.
He glanced at her as the opening music to the program began. “Me? No. The same teaching classes, dealing with students, maneuvering through the halls of academia.” He grimaced. “Not bad. Just dull.”
She sighed. “Remember running for our lives?”
He flashed her a quick grin. “Which time?”
Rose laughed and suddenly neither one of them particularly minded how boring and difficult life was these days. She leaned forward and grabbed a chocolate biscuit while the Doctor opened a bottle of Coke for her.
“Do you know what’s funny, though?” the Doctor asked during a break in the program, as if they were continuing a conversation they’d started earlier.
“No, what?” Rose looked at him expectantly.
“I’m here. Right now, in this flat with you. But somewhere else in London, another me is here, too. Running about, working and having adventures and just being me - well, him, since he and I aren’t much alike even though we’re the same person - while I just sit here, waiting to get back where I belong.”
Rose was silent, looking at him with wide eyes. He rarely spoke about his life before he met her, and she didn’t want to do anything that would make him stop talking.
“It’s silly, anyway,” he continued. “I mean, I can’t go tracking myself down, asking to borrow the TARDIS, because...” His voice trailed off.
“Because the universe would explode if the two of you met?” Rose suggested, and he laughed.
“Sort of. He’s a lucky bastard, he is. His people have stranded him here on Earth, but he knows where they are. He knows that home is still there. He’s not alone.” The Doctor’s voice trailed off again and he stared fixedly at the television screen.
“You’re not alone, Doctor,” Rose said firmly. “I'm right here.”
That snapped him out of it and he gave her a wide smile. “I know. I’m so glad you’re here, Rose Tyler. Don’t worry. I won’t go looking for myself and ripping the fabric of time and space. But I do need to keep a low profile. If he ever caught wind of me, there’d be some awkward explanations, and who knows what events would change?”
“I’ll just keep you close by then,” she said.
“Make sure you do.” The Doctor demonstrated how much he wanted that by moving closer to her and putting his arm around her.
Something made Rose open her mouth before she could think it through. “Doctor.”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me.”
Thirty-four