Flower and Willow: Chapter 14 (A)
Oct. 8th, 2011 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timelord1
Title: Flower and Willow
Rating: Teen
Pairing: 10/Rose
Category: Drama, Romance, Humor, Action/Adventure
Summay:On their way to visit old friends, the Doctor and Rose come across a mystery in one of Kyoto's geisha districts in US-Occupied Japan, 1948.
Notes: This is the "A" portion of the chapter. The "B" portion will be posted separately, hopefully later this afternoon. I'm sure you'll understand why at the end of the chapter.
Rose had been determined to prove to the Doctor that she would make a much better leading lady than a dinner lady whenever they were in disguise, and she had absorbed every word of Ichisumi’s instruction as if it were the difference between living and dying. She’d run things over in her head constantly, counting steps, taking bloody notes on things, practicing like it was an obsession, all for one moment. When it had come, she’d wanted to see him impressed with her for a change. She wanted him jealous, eating his hearts out.
She had not expected him to say what he’d said.
I love her more than my own life.
The world began to turn in the opposite direction. He’d said he would never be able to say it, and he’d just announced it in that cheesy American voice that did sound just a bit like John Wayne around the edges. But he’d said it. To her. Out loud. She felt wibbly and was very happy she was on her knees, or her legs might not have been able to hold her up.
“Doctor,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.
“Easy,” Bob warned. “Pour me a drink, Okamimomo-san. People are watching.”
“Of course,” Rose said, snapping back into character. She almost missed his glass, but he shifted it so she didn’t pour beer all over the table. “How long have you been in Kyoto, Bob-san?”
“Since May,” he answered, watching the rest of the room while Rose and the Doctor stared at one another. His face broke into a nervous grin. “I just told a joke, you two. Laugh.”
Rose giggled while the Doctor loosed a braying guffaw and slapped Bob hard on the back. “Oh, that’s a good one, Bobbo.”
“Bob,” Bob corrected with a little shake of his head. “Never Bobbo.”
“Right,” the Doctor said, still making moony eyes at Rose. She was blushing under the layers of shellac. “You’re beautiful,” he said, inclining his head towards her.
“You look so different,” Rose whispered. Their hands were not touching, but were resting on the table millimeters away from each other.
He leaned his head even closer. “Do you like it?” he asked. There was something new about the way he was looking at her; so unguarded and tender and human. It made her almost ache with the want of his arms around her.
“I really, really…don’t.” she whispered with a giggle. She had to keep it light, or they might start snogging right in the middle of the teahouse.
He and Bob laughed. Just in time, in fact, as Mikazuki the proprietress came and knelt down at the table with them. When she'd first arrived at the teahouse, Rose had just time enough to introduce herself and thank the woman for the invitation to perform at the teahouse before they’d gotten started, so she didn’t know much about the woman except that she had a pretty nasty burn on her face and did all the food preparation herself. Maybe she’d been burned in the kitchen?
“Are you enjoying yourselves?” Mikazuki asked.
“Yes,” the Doctor said, looking pointedly at Rose. His boy-with-a-crush expression was starting to go a bit green.
“Your girls are beautiful,” Bob said. “My buddy John here has never been to a teahouse before.”
“Are you new to Japan?” Mikazuki asked the Doctor.
He shrugged. “I’ve been around the Pacific since ‘44, but this is my first trip to the mainland. I was Island hopping during the war. Marshall Islands, Tinian…” Was he sweating?
“Bob,” he went on. “What time is it? Can you check your watch?”
“Tinian,” Mikazuki said, looking him square in the eyes with her good one. “You are a pilot, I see.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Doctor said with a little nod.
Bob stared at his watch like he’d never seen it before in his life, and didn’t know how it had come to be strapped onto his wrist. “What in the world?” he whispered.
“Did you fly many missions from the base at Tinian?” Mikazuki asked.
“A few,” the Doctor answered. Now his voice sounded thick despite the accent. Rose hoped he wasn’t getting sick. He swallowed like he was trying to keep something down, and it was all she could do to keep her concern from showing anything other than mild interest.
“I see,” Mikazuki said. “You are quite taken with Okamimomo-san, are you not?” she chuckled and Rose giggled and looked away, shooting furtive glances in the Doctor’s direction.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
“Did you know that this ochaya offers private tea ceremonies with our geisha? Special for American soldiers who have never experienced the traditional tea ceremony? Perhaps you would be interested in sharing such an evening with Okamimomo-san.”
At this, the green left the Doctor’s face and his eyes went dark. Did she just get pimped? What about all the Doctor had said about geisha not being hookers? He kept the air of a lovesick puppy as he looked at Rose, despite the hardness she could see settling into his jaw. She began to wonder if the googly-eyed staring he was doing was all a put-on for the benefit of the teahouse.
“Private?” he asked, a hopeful edge to his voice.
“Yes, immediately following the main festivities. Our private room is booked for this evening, but perhaps you would be interested in something tomorrow night?” Mikazuki asked. She was eyeing Rose now in a way that made her hair stand on end.
“I would be very interested, if the lady is willing,” the Doctor said. The look in his eyes told her to answer in the affirmative.
“I am willing,” Rose answered. She was going to murder him.
Mikazuki clapped her hands and Rose saw the Doctor flinch ever so slightly at the sound. “It is settled, then. We will see you again tomorrow night.” She gave him a little bow and got to her feet and moved to the next table. Rose saw the Doctor’s shoulders relax and he breathed a long sigh.
“Did what I think just happened actually just happen?” Bob asked. “And what the hell was going on with my watch?”
“Did she just pimp me out to you?” Rose whispered, grabbing his hand to squeeze it as hard as she could. “And you accepted it?”
“Ow. Let go, please,” he said through the clenched teeth of his fake smile. She let go of his hand. “There’s something else going on here besides the pimping. But yes, she just pimped you out to me. I don’t want you investigating this place on your own. The moment we leave, I want you in a rickshaw heading straight back to the okiya. We’ll figure out a way to snoop around together tomorrow night. There’s something about that woman; when she gets too close she makes me ill.”
“Oh, now,” Bob said with a disapproving frown. “She can’t help it she got burned.”
“No,” the Doctor said. “Your watch ran backwards, didn’t it?”
Bob nodded. “Not the whole time. It would run forwards, then jump back a few hours all of a sudden. It’s stopped now, dead. I think it’s broken.”
“That was her,” the Doctor said. “The fluctuation is affecting anything to do with time that gets too close to her.
“You mean she’s the hotbed?” Rose asked.
He shrugged. “Or she’s carrying the hotbed around with her. Maybe a device. I don’t know, but we’re going to get through this evening and tomorrow night we’ll find out what’s going on.”
“I’m coming with you,” Bob said.
Rose could tell the Doctor was about to raise an argument to that when the other geishas got up and came to the front of the room for the evening’s performance. She winked at the Doctor and joined them, going over the steps in her mind one last time before the music started to play.
*****
“You’re not coming with us,” the Doctor whispered to Bob’s back as the geishas began to dance.
“Hell I’m not,” Bob whispered back. Rose was standing to the side, waiting for her turn to perform. Two of the geishas were dancing while a third strummed a shamisen and sang.
“Bob, if something happens to us, then you’ve got to get the MPs involved. We’ll come to the post right after we’re finished investigating. If we don’t show up, then you bring in the cavalry.”
“And what if it’s too late for you and Rose?” Bob asked.
“Don’t worry about me and Rose,” the Doctor whispered. “We’ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times. Besides, she said it was a private tea ceremony for me and her. How would we explain you being here?”
“I don’t like it,” Bob said.
“You’ve never had to hang back and be the just-in-case guy before?” the Doctor asked. “Come on, now. You know how scouting missions work.”
“And do you?” Bob shot back. “What kind of experience do you have, anyway?”
The Doctor leaned forward and murmured in Bob’s ear. “I am nine hundred years old, the last of a race called the Time Lords. My people were destroyed in a war that threatened to tear the entire universe apart. In that battle, I held the rank equivalent to a five-star General in your Army, and I did most of my fighting on the front lines. I made the decision to let my home planet burn to preserve the rest of the universe. That enough experience for you?” He leaned back in his chair and watched the dancers, waiting for Rose to take the stage so he’d have something nicer to think about.
Bob didn’t speak for a while. He finally turned around and looked the Doctor in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Never assume, I guess. I’ll be your just-in-case guy on this one.”
“No harm done,” the Doctor replied with a smile. “I only pick the best for my just-in-case.”
They exchanged brief nods and clinked their beers together. The Doctor had to marvel at Lieutenant Pace. For a man of his era, that was a considerable outpouring of emotion. A nod and a glass-clink. Very progressive. He’d chosen well, yet again. In the meantime, his favorite choice of companion was taking the stage to perform the dance she’d learned from Ichisumi.
She snapped a fan open and twirled it out to the end of her fingers. It moved around her almost seemingly of its own accord as she performed the turns and steps of the dance with slow, measured elegance. Suddenly, a second fan appeared in her hand and she danced as if coaxing a butterfly to fly around her, never missing a step as the woman playing the shamisen warbled an ancient tune. The Doctor was mesmerized. In that moment a Dalek could have taken the seat next to him and he wouldn’t have noticed. At the end she went to her knees with impossible grace and after pausing in a pose that was almost coy, twirled the two fans simultaneously as the teahouse erupted in applause.
“Boy, she really is something,” Bob said. His words broke the lingering spell Rose’s performance had cast on the Doctor and he remembered to clap while there was still a chance to do so.
“Absolutely brilliant,” the Doctor replied.
There were two more performances before the geishas came back to join the men at their tables. Naturally, Rose went back to the Marines’ table, leaving the Doctor to pine after her. He drank another beer down at one go and kept shooting dagger eyes at the table of jolly Marines that were making her laugh and not pay any attention to him. Of course he wasn’t paying a second of attention to the geisha at his own table, but Bob was handling the conversation nicely and didn’t need any help from him.
Rose stayed away from their table for the rest of the night, playing games and drinking with both the sailors and the Marines, but completely ignoring the Doctor and Bob. The other geishas were quite attentive to their table, but the Doctor was taciturn and spent most of the time staring at Rose, who offered barely a glance in his direction. Occasionally she would turn her head just enough to give him a view of the bare patches of skin. He was going out of his mind.
Then, she glanced at him, a wicked twinkle in her eye as she drew out one of the fans and snapped it open, spun it on her finger, snapped it closed and open impossibly fast, tossed it into the air with a flourish and caught it with the other hand, the fan spread open so she could just peer over the edge at him. Ichisumi’s fan trick. Bob reached over and pushed on the Doctor’s jaw to close his mouth.
“You’re gonna start drooling there, buddy,” Bob said. “Want to watch that.”
He tried to verbalize a reply, but all that came out of his mouth was a noise like a watery squeak.
The evening was just beginning to wind down when his hackles began to rise, snapping him back to reality. The hair on his arms stood straight out, as if he were in a room with too much static electricity, and for that moment he was happy he had very little hair on his head that could stand up to announce to the rest of the room that something was wrong. The door to the room slid open and Mikazuki entered, bowing to the patrons.
“Thank you all for joining us tonight. I hope your visit was most pleasant. Please join us again soon,” she said.
Everyone got up to leave except for one of the Marines, who kept eyeing one of the other geishas. He was apparently the lucky winner of a private tea ceremony for the night. The Doctor and Bob walked out together and slipped into a narrow alley between two buildings to wait and watch for Rose to emerge. The street was full of people and rickshaws and bicycles despite the late hour, as the teahouses emptied for the night.
“It’s taking too long,” the Doctor announced, stepping onto the street. Bob pulled him back into the alley and put his hands on his chest to hold him in place.
“It hasn't even been five minutes. She has to get paid and go through all the formalities. Just wait.”
“Here, while I’m thinking of it,” the Doctor said, taking hold of Bob’s left wrist to listen to the watch. “This is going to need a bit more than winding.” He zapped the watch face with the sonic and the hands swept to the proper time and began ticking again.
“I have got to get one of those magic screwdrivers.” Bob said.
“Sonic,” the Doctor said as he tucked it back into his pocket and went back to watching the teahouse. Bob would come to find out that the watch never needed winding again, and no matter where he went, it always kept local time without his having to adjust it. Rose emerged unaccompanied a moment later. She looked around, presumably for the Doctor and Bob, before hailing a rickshaw. Once she was safely down the street, the Doctor and Bob came out of the alley and the Doctor returned to the Chrysanthemum’s front door.
“What are you doing?” Bob asked.
The Doctor started pounding on the door. “We can’t leave that Marine alone in there.” He turned to the door and started shouting in his American accent. “Come on out, jar-head! I wanna talk to you!”
“What’s your plan?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Get him to the front door. I’ll improvise after that – rescues don’t have to be tidy. Just effective.”
Bob shrugged and joined in, banging on the door with his fists and shouting for the Marine. By the time the Marine came to the door there was a small crowd gathered at the sidewalk, watching. Exactly what the Doctor wanted – witnesses. The Marine could barely be nineteen years old – face like a baby with bright blue eyes and a flush in his cheeks. The top button of his uniform was unbuttoned.
“What the hell do you want?” he cried. Louisiana accent; traces of Creole? Didn’t matter.
The Doctor glanced at Bob, then balled up his fist and punched the Marine in the face. He stumbled backwards, almost falling, before the Doctor grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him into the street.
“You were looking at my girl!” the Doctor snarled through clenched teeth as he delivered the gentlest haymaker he could muster. He flung the stunned Marine backwards into Bob’s arms as someone in the street shouted for the MPs. Bob caught the Marine and held him up as the Doctor slipped into the crowd and vanished in the direction of the okiya. When the MPs came to get a description of the man who had punched the Marine, Bob described the Doctor, except that his version of the Doctor was an Army lieutenant with red hair, green eyes, a sizeable mole on his right cheek and no tattoos. The MPs took the Marine back to base in their jeep, and Bob walked back to the post, taking the long way so he had time to digest everything that had happened. Three blocks from the post the sky opened in a downpour.
*****
Two impulses were battling in the Doctor’s mind. On one hand, he knew the smartest thing to do was to go immediately back to the teahouse and try to investigate what was going on with that woman. The second impulse was not new and hardly unexpected, but dizzying in prospect. It was also winning the battle in his mind. The Marine was safe; nobody was going to disappear tonight to the best of his knowledge. The world could take a few turns without him watching over it.
He moved through the alleys of the hanamachi, taking routes he and Ichisumi had discovered years ago that some of the area’s native residents probably didn’t know about. The garden at the back of the okiya was surrounded by a high wooden fence that, unless it had been replaced, had two loose boards next to one another that could be pushed to the side to allow a lanky Time Lord to slip through.
He stood in the garden and looked up the back steps for a while, pondering. The part of him that still gave a damn about propriety presented him with the option of spending the night in the TARDIS. Go upstairs, let her know he was safe, say goodnight and sleep it off in his own bed, alone. The impulse would subside by morning. Things would stay just as they were between them, perfectly in stasis. That would be the right thing to do. Who knew what kind of a mess he would make of things if he went upstairs and acted on this impulse?
He felt a drop of rain hit the back of his hand and he looked up at the sky; he hadn’t noticed the clouds until that moment. His rain-soaked specter hovered over his thoughts. There was no telling when Rose would be gone from him forever. Why should he deny himself over and over again? What had he done that was so terrible that he needed to be alone for the rest of his endless existence? The sky opened at that moment, the rain falling on his shoulders like a thousand aspersions cast by a universe that would do whatever it could to make sure he was never truly happy again, and the Doctor was resolved.
“You know what, universe?” he said, looking up at the sky as he ascended the stairs and loosened his tie. “Come and get me.”
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 06:42 pm (UTC)................
You'll find that Lindsay cannot respond at the moment. She just can't deal with all this. She did, however, leave a lovely little note that said something about updating now and also her terrible mental anguish? You can't expect me to remember all the details, really
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Date: 2011-10-08 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 06:56 pm (UTC)WRITE. FASTER.
.....PLEASE
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Date: 2011-10-08 06:47 pm (UTC)You are EVIL. EVIL EVIL EVIL.
How could you end it there?!
Ahem. Anyway.
Yes, Rose definitely has the Doctor under her spell, and that little fan trick sealed the deal. Oh, I cannot wait for the next chapter!!!
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Date: 2011-10-08 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 06:56 pm (UTC)Squeeeeeeee!!!! My tummy is all flippy in anticipation!
There was so much that was great about this chapter... The flirting, the dance, the conversation with Bobbo (hee!). “I only pick the best for my just-in-case.”</I. I am glad you are keeping Bob around for a while. PART B PART B PART B!! (my turn to picket.)
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Date: 2011-10-09 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 06:59 pm (UTC)Brilliant chapter by the way!
Cruel Cruel Cruel...
You wrote of them so brilliantly and I'm falling in love with Bob, I'm not sure why, but I just love him! :)
*You are now chained to your computer*
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Date: 2011-10-09 12:57 am (UTC)Glad you like Bob - there's a fun little secret about Bob that will be revealed at the end of the fic, whenever I get to that point. :)
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Date: 2011-10-08 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-09 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-09 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-09 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-09 06:09 am (UTC)*CRAWLS TO NEXT PART*
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Date: 2011-10-09 06:12 am (UTC)*knows what's coming next...o dear* :D
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Date: 2011-10-10 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-10 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 03:32 am (UTC)