Flower and Willow: Chapter 1
Sep. 13th, 2011 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timelord1So many firsts since I started putting stuff on the Teaspoon and on LJ. I'm going to try posting "Flower and Willow" aka the Geisha Rose story, chapter by chapter instead of finishing the project and posting it all at once over a couple of days. So, here's chapter one:
Title: Flower and Willow
Rating: Teen (at least for this chapter)
Pairing: 10/Rose
Summary: On their way to visit old friends, the Doctor and Rose find something that sidetracks them. Isn't that always the way with them?
Notes: This is going to be a bit of a long story, so it'll take some buildup, but I hope you enjoy. There's been some historical research involved, so I hope that any inaccuracies can be chalked up to bad research and ignorance on the part of the author.
“I know your game, Rose Tyler. I am no fool,” the Doctor said. “I see exactly what you’re doing. Time is laid out in front of me as strands of woven cloth, each one moving into the next. I can perceive the warp and woof of time, and you expect me to be fooled by such a simple trick?”
Rose jumped his black checker with her red one and reached his last row. “Yes, I do. King me, and take off your knickers.”
“I won’t,” he said, folding his arms across his chest, which was bare except for his tie. He jutted his chin out and stared at the ceiling. Rose grinned a wicked grin and sat back in her chair. She was fully dressed, except for her shoes and socks.
“You’re being stroppy again,” she said.
His right shoulder lifted slightly in a shrug as he kept staring upwards. “Don’t care.”
“Would you rather play something else?” she asked.
He looked at her with a vile scowl and tipped over the board, scattering the checkers on the floor. “I don’t want to play anything anymore with you at all. Ever!”
“Ooh, not used to getting the pants beat off of ya, literally, are you?” Rose asked as she stooped to pick up the checkers. He held out his hand to stop her and cleaned up the mess himself.
“I’d like to see what happens if we played strip chess sometime,” he shot back. “Checkers is a game for the feeble-minded.”
Rose couldn’t stop grinning. “I can see why it’d be a bit advanced for you, then.”
His sour mood, which hadn’t truly been sour in the first place, melted into a broad smile. “You’ve got an answer for everything, you do. Alright, you’ve won by default –“
“I won because you’re nearly naked!” Rose cut in.
He waved her indignation away with his hand. “Doesn’t matter. I defaulted. Could have come back and won, but I had enough respect for your modesty to take the gentleman’s way out.”
“Having a tizzy and dumping the pieces on the floor is the gentleman’s way out?” she asked, laughing.
“Given the alternative,” he answered. It was an alternative he had to work very hard at not thinking about, considering the only thing between his manhood and Rose was three millimeters of Pac-Man printed undershorts. “With your victory comes the opportunity to choose where you and I go next in the TARDIS. It’s by-request time: anywhere you want that won’t interfere with your personal timeline.”
“I’ve been thinking about it since we started playing,” Rose said. “Well, since you lost your jacket and shirt within thirty seconds of each other, really. There is a place I want to go.”
“Name it,” he said, dumping the last of the checkers into the box and putting the set back into the game cupboard.
“I was thinking we never go back to see how the people we’ve helped are doing after we’ve helped them. D’you think we could go back to London, after the war, and see how Nancy and Jamie are doing? Make sure he didn't grow another gas mask face or anything?”
At last it had come; the old ‘check-in’ request. He had his back to her as he’d been closing the game cupboard when she asked, and he hesitated a moment before turning around, so he could get the irritated look off his face.
“You might not like what you find,” he said.
“Why? What’s happened to them?” Rose asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Personally, I prefer it that way. When you go back, sometimes you find that things didn’t work out the greatest for the person, even after all you did to save them. If you never go back, you can let yourself believe that they’re happy-ever-after and nothing bad ever happened to them again.”
“You know life rarely has a happy ending,” Rose said.
“Call it my coping mechanism after hundreds of years of meddling with people’s lives. It’s hard to accept that, after all the things you did and the risks you took, so many lives just trail off into futility anyway. A lot of times you just save someone for the moment. If you think about it for too long, you start to wonder ‘What’s the point?’” he said, tugging on his ear and avoiding her eyes.
“Okay, but sometimes you make them better,” Rose said. “What if right now, or what’s right now for them, Nancy and Jamie are as happy as can be and everything’s working out wonderful for them, and you’d never know it? I think what you really think is that most people end up having a bad life after you’ve left them, and you don’t want to go back and see it. You don’t really think anybody has a happy ending, and that’s why you never go back.”
He smiled at her. “You see right through me.”
“I can see right through your shorts at the moment, anyway,” Rose said.
He nodded. “Yes, you probably can. Fair enough: we’re going to do this one time, solely to prove to you that it’s a bad idea. Now, give me back my clothes and we’ll get going.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’ll have to win them back,” she said, and ran out of the game room. He gave her a ten-count head start before tearing off after her. He could have gone to the wardrobe and grabbed other clothes, of course, but that wasn’t the point. She wanted to play, and he wanted to be sure she was as happy as he could make her before they descended on whatever ruin Nancy and Jamie had made of their lives. If they were even still alive after the war. Odds were that they’d starved to death, or been blown up by a bomb that didn’t have healing nanogenes on board to undo the damage. At first he had gone back to places to check on people, but so many times he’d been devastated by the sad endings or, worse, the utter pointless banality of the lives people had led that he’d sworn never to go back again. The first time he’d broken that rule in a very long time was when he’d gone back to point out to Rose that the TARDIS traveled in time. That had been quite a happy ending, hadn’t it?
Rose, screaming and giggling, let herself get chased into the pool room and he tackled her into the deep end with a Gallifreyan battle cry. His hands slipped onto her bare skin when her shirt went up under the water and he pulled away from her before he could act on the impulse to draw her closer, to explore. They surfaced and she splashed him, which was exactly what he needed at that moment to get his head back on straight.
“You’re fast,” she gasped as she swam to the stairs and sat down on them.
He shrugged, ducking his head under the water to smooth his hair back off his face. “I slow myself down most of the time so my Gallifreyan ninja reflexes don’t startle you.”
She smiled, nibbling on the tip of her tongue as she did. “What, you can move like a vampire in one of those movies?”
“Not that fast. But, plenty fast if I want to be,” he said with a sideways quirk of his head.
“Show me.”
He was out of the water and on the stairs, sitting next to her with a grin. She jumped. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t turn all glittery in the sunlight. Yech.”
“No, but you do have your shirt off, so you could technically be an extra in Twilight. I think you’d look fetching covered in glitter,” Rose said.
He chuckled. “Ohyes. I do look fetching all covered in glitter. Where do you think David Bowie got the idea for Ziggy Stardust?”
“David Bowie?”
“Yeah – I picked him up in Soho in ’69 and we knocked around a bit. He let me sit in on a folk set at the Three Tuns Pub in Beckenham and I introduced him to the Spiders from Mars.”
Rose got out of the pool and walked away, shaking her head and laughing.
“Just so you know,” he called after her, “for the record, I left him, not the other way ‘round. It started to get too weird for even me.”
“I’m going to dry off and change now!” she answered.
“Need any help?” he asked. She didn’t reply. He headed off to the wardrobe, whistling ‘Golden Years,’ dripping as he went.
Title: Flower and Willow
Rating: Teen (at least for this chapter)
Pairing: 10/Rose
Summary: On their way to visit old friends, the Doctor and Rose find something that sidetracks them. Isn't that always the way with them?
Notes: This is going to be a bit of a long story, so it'll take some buildup, but I hope you enjoy. There's been some historical research involved, so I hope that any inaccuracies can be chalked up to bad research and ignorance on the part of the author.
“I know your game, Rose Tyler. I am no fool,” the Doctor said. “I see exactly what you’re doing. Time is laid out in front of me as strands of woven cloth, each one moving into the next. I can perceive the warp and woof of time, and you expect me to be fooled by such a simple trick?”
Rose jumped his black checker with her red one and reached his last row. “Yes, I do. King me, and take off your knickers.”
“I won’t,” he said, folding his arms across his chest, which was bare except for his tie. He jutted his chin out and stared at the ceiling. Rose grinned a wicked grin and sat back in her chair. She was fully dressed, except for her shoes and socks.
“You’re being stroppy again,” she said.
His right shoulder lifted slightly in a shrug as he kept staring upwards. “Don’t care.”
“Would you rather play something else?” she asked.
He looked at her with a vile scowl and tipped over the board, scattering the checkers on the floor. “I don’t want to play anything anymore with you at all. Ever!”
“Ooh, not used to getting the pants beat off of ya, literally, are you?” Rose asked as she stooped to pick up the checkers. He held out his hand to stop her and cleaned up the mess himself.
“I’d like to see what happens if we played strip chess sometime,” he shot back. “Checkers is a game for the feeble-minded.”
Rose couldn’t stop grinning. “I can see why it’d be a bit advanced for you, then.”
His sour mood, which hadn’t truly been sour in the first place, melted into a broad smile. “You’ve got an answer for everything, you do. Alright, you’ve won by default –“
“I won because you’re nearly naked!” Rose cut in.
He waved her indignation away with his hand. “Doesn’t matter. I defaulted. Could have come back and won, but I had enough respect for your modesty to take the gentleman’s way out.”
“Having a tizzy and dumping the pieces on the floor is the gentleman’s way out?” she asked, laughing.
“Given the alternative,” he answered. It was an alternative he had to work very hard at not thinking about, considering the only thing between his manhood and Rose was three millimeters of Pac-Man printed undershorts. “With your victory comes the opportunity to choose where you and I go next in the TARDIS. It’s by-request time: anywhere you want that won’t interfere with your personal timeline.”
“I’ve been thinking about it since we started playing,” Rose said. “Well, since you lost your jacket and shirt within thirty seconds of each other, really. There is a place I want to go.”
“Name it,” he said, dumping the last of the checkers into the box and putting the set back into the game cupboard.
“I was thinking we never go back to see how the people we’ve helped are doing after we’ve helped them. D’you think we could go back to London, after the war, and see how Nancy and Jamie are doing? Make sure he didn't grow another gas mask face or anything?”
At last it had come; the old ‘check-in’ request. He had his back to her as he’d been closing the game cupboard when she asked, and he hesitated a moment before turning around, so he could get the irritated look off his face.
“You might not like what you find,” he said.
“Why? What’s happened to them?” Rose asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Personally, I prefer it that way. When you go back, sometimes you find that things didn’t work out the greatest for the person, even after all you did to save them. If you never go back, you can let yourself believe that they’re happy-ever-after and nothing bad ever happened to them again.”
“You know life rarely has a happy ending,” Rose said.
“Call it my coping mechanism after hundreds of years of meddling with people’s lives. It’s hard to accept that, after all the things you did and the risks you took, so many lives just trail off into futility anyway. A lot of times you just save someone for the moment. If you think about it for too long, you start to wonder ‘What’s the point?’” he said, tugging on his ear and avoiding her eyes.
“Okay, but sometimes you make them better,” Rose said. “What if right now, or what’s right now for them, Nancy and Jamie are as happy as can be and everything’s working out wonderful for them, and you’d never know it? I think what you really think is that most people end up having a bad life after you’ve left them, and you don’t want to go back and see it. You don’t really think anybody has a happy ending, and that’s why you never go back.”
He smiled at her. “You see right through me.”
“I can see right through your shorts at the moment, anyway,” Rose said.
He nodded. “Yes, you probably can. Fair enough: we’re going to do this one time, solely to prove to you that it’s a bad idea. Now, give me back my clothes and we’ll get going.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’ll have to win them back,” she said, and ran out of the game room. He gave her a ten-count head start before tearing off after her. He could have gone to the wardrobe and grabbed other clothes, of course, but that wasn’t the point. She wanted to play, and he wanted to be sure she was as happy as he could make her before they descended on whatever ruin Nancy and Jamie had made of their lives. If they were even still alive after the war. Odds were that they’d starved to death, or been blown up by a bomb that didn’t have healing nanogenes on board to undo the damage. At first he had gone back to places to check on people, but so many times he’d been devastated by the sad endings or, worse, the utter pointless banality of the lives people had led that he’d sworn never to go back again. The first time he’d broken that rule in a very long time was when he’d gone back to point out to Rose that the TARDIS traveled in time. That had been quite a happy ending, hadn’t it?
Rose, screaming and giggling, let herself get chased into the pool room and he tackled her into the deep end with a Gallifreyan battle cry. His hands slipped onto her bare skin when her shirt went up under the water and he pulled away from her before he could act on the impulse to draw her closer, to explore. They surfaced and she splashed him, which was exactly what he needed at that moment to get his head back on straight.
“You’re fast,” she gasped as she swam to the stairs and sat down on them.
He shrugged, ducking his head under the water to smooth his hair back off his face. “I slow myself down most of the time so my Gallifreyan ninja reflexes don’t startle you.”
She smiled, nibbling on the tip of her tongue as she did. “What, you can move like a vampire in one of those movies?”
“Not that fast. But, plenty fast if I want to be,” he said with a sideways quirk of his head.
“Show me.”
He was out of the water and on the stairs, sitting next to her with a grin. She jumped. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t turn all glittery in the sunlight. Yech.”
“No, but you do have your shirt off, so you could technically be an extra in Twilight. I think you’d look fetching covered in glitter,” Rose said.
He chuckled. “Ohyes. I do look fetching all covered in glitter. Where do you think David Bowie got the idea for Ziggy Stardust?”
“David Bowie?”
“Yeah – I picked him up in Soho in ’69 and we knocked around a bit. He let me sit in on a folk set at the Three Tuns Pub in Beckenham and I introduced him to the Spiders from Mars.”
Rose got out of the pool and walked away, shaking her head and laughing.
“Just so you know,” he called after her, “for the record, I left him, not the other way ‘round. It started to get too weird for even me.”
“I’m going to dry off and change now!” she answered.
“Need any help?” he asked. She didn’t reply. He headed off to the wardrobe, whistling ‘Golden Years,’ dripping as he went.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 02:00 pm (UTC)And this: “I’d like to see what happens if we played strip chess sometime,” he shot back. “Checkers is a game for the feeble-minded.”
I can hardly wait to see where this is going!!!!!! Is your charge going to be sleeping a lot today? I hope so!
BTW, your video may just have re-sparked my Let's Get Lost muse... I haven't written a coherent word since Saturday.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 02:05 pm (UTC)And yay on the video giving the muse a kick in the pants! Wasn't that fantastic? That may become my go-to morning Doctor fix.
All right, enough posting and hanging about - to work with me!!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 01:04 pm (UTC)