Flower and Willow: Chapter 19
Oct. 17th, 2011 03:10 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 chapter was posted without a beta, so all mistakes are mine. However, I want to throw out all the love in the world to the best betas a girl ever had:
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kelkat9, onabearskinrug and who_in_whoville - this story would not have come to this syrupy, twee conclusion without their help. Almost gave it up a couple of times when I got stuck, but those three beauties kept it going, pulling the geishas out of the mud and giving me the appropriate smacks over the head when necessary. I'm sad it's over, but that just means the next big story can commence, right? Hope you enjoy. Done talking now. :)The Doctor’s favorite part of the evening had been seeing Nancy again. She had grown into a beautiful woman, smartly dressed in a red suit and matching hat and gloves, hair expertly arranged, but when she saw Rose the sophistication left her face and she looked completely like the resourceful young girl they had met seven years before.
“That can’t be you,” she said to Rose, setting her things down in the foyer as she approached. “Where is the Doctor? Is he with you?”
“Hello, Nancy,” the Doctor said, coming closer to her. “It’s me.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said, glaring at him. Her elegant mode of dress stood in awkward contrast to the sharp cockney voice that came out of her mouth when she got angry. “Who do you think you are? I remember the Doctor plain as day and you’re not him.”
“He is,” Doctor Constantine said. “He and Rose were in a terrible accident and I had to bring them here.”
“The fireflies fixed them,” Jamie explained, “like they fixed me before.”
Nancy narrowed her eyes and studied the Doctor, saying nothing.
“They were in very bad shape,” Doctor Constantine went on. “The nanogenes had to give him a new face.”
“That’s really you?” Nancy asked, peering into his eyes. The Doctor nodded. Secondary occupation.
“I’m good at followin’ people, me,” he said, winking at her. “Got the nose for it.”
At last she screwed up one side of her face and nodded. “All right, it’s you then. I like the ears better this time.”
“Oi!” the Doctor cried as Rose burst out laughing.
“And the nose,” Nancy added, coming in to give him a hug.
They ate roast pork for dinner and drank two whole bottles of Doctor Constantine’s best wine. Nancy told them about her fiancé; a war veteran who was opening his own bakery, with the stipulation that any starving children that came to the back door received a full hot meal and more to take away with them. The Doctor and Rose mostly listened, not saying much more than that they spent their time traveling.
After dinner they retired to the billiard room for brandy and more conversation. The Doctor had two glasses of brandy and even let a little of the alcohol soak in as he and Doctor Constantine sat in matching leather armchairs by the fire, talking. Nancy and Rose were in another part of the room, going over Nancy’s wedding plans, while Jamie sat on a footstool between the two men, soaking up their vast intellect.
“So, Doctor Constantine,” the Doctor began.
“Leighton,” Constantine said. “My first name.”
“Leighton,” the Doctor repeated, raising his snifter in acknowledgment. “Unless I miss my guess, I would assume that every so often, a patient with no hope of survival gets treated to a car ride from Albion Hospital to a certain house in the country where they make a sudden, miraculous recovery.”
Constantine snorted and took a long drink before answering. “It’s no miracle at all. It is merely the prudent application of available treatment options. Not often enough to arouse suspicion, mind, but it has happened on occasion.”
“They’ll wear out eventually,” the Doctor said, staring into the fire. The brandy was sending lovely waves of warmth under his skin and he knew he would sleep well that night.
“When they do, I will throw away the jar and be thankful for the miracles they accomplished while they were here,” Constantine said. “Everything wears out, you know. Why waste the time you have with something worrying about when your time will end?”
“A valid point,” the Doctor said. He took another drink and leaned back to watch Rose and Nancy laughing together for a while.
When they went to bed, he and Rose were shown to separate guest rooms across the hall from one another. Rose waved to him before closing her door, but as soon as he heard Doctor Constantine’s footsteps retreating down the hall, he heard Rose’s door open and she knocked at his.
He opened the door and greeted her with a slow kiss. “Hello,” he said, drawing her inside. “Haven’t had a chance to properly do this in a while.”
“Well, you know,” Rose said in between kisses. “Getting’ blown up and nearly dying takes up a lot of your time.”
“Yes,” he said, and it was the last thing either of them said for quite a while. After a good long snog, they whispered good night to one another and Rose went back across the hall and closed her door, leaving the Doctor with several hours before sunrise and not the slightest inclination to lie down and sleep. He finally changed into the baggy pyjama pants Leighton had loaned him and crawled into bed.
He stared at the Flemish painting on the wall opposite the windows. Brown-spotted cows were grazing in a field by a stream near sunset. He’d named the cows, given them all elaborate back-stories, and was at last reduced to counting the individual blades of grass in the field in an effort to dull his mind, but nothing was working. On the best nights he had a hard time slowing the surging brilliance inside his head, but on nights like this, with the taste of Rose’s lips still lingering on his own, sleep was impossible.
The bed was soft enough, but despite the cozy bed and the soothing heat of the brandy in his bloodstream, he could not get comfortable. He tried laying on one side, then the other, then his back and his stomach and then just gave up, punching his dense down pillow and sitting up in bed.
He heard the door across the hallway open and the creak of floorboards as Rose tried to sneak across to his door. She put her hand on the doorknob to turn it and the Doctor snapped out the bedside light and ducked under the covers before she could turn it a quarter-turn.
“Doctor?” she whispered, easing the door open. “Are you awake?”
He breathed deeply and rhythmically, eyes closed, listening to what she would do next. If she’d wanted to talk to him, she would have knocked. She was hoping he was asleep, so he played the part. She crept over to the bed and lifted the covers as slowly as she could, and climbed into the bed, nestling on the far side of the mattress. As soon as her body heat radiated over to him, he knew why he hadn’t been able to sleep until that moment. He rolled over with a grunt so he was facing her, but kept his eyes closed.
“You’re awake,” Rose whispered, kissing his nose. “Nobody smiles like that in their sleep.”
“What are you doing in my bed, Rose Tyler?” he asked. “The house would be scandalized if they found out.”
“Let ‘em be scandalized,” she answered. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“It was kind of nice in the okiya with only one futon for the two of us,” he whispered. They both leaned their heads in towards each other until they were touching. “Of course, if we get too used to it, we’re going to have to sleep in the same bed in the TARDIS or die of insomnia.”
“I noticed your bed is pretty big,” Rose said, resting her hand on his chest. “Maybe some nights when I can’t sleep, I could…?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome there every night,” he answered. “’course, I don’t sleep there every night, but you could cuddle my pillow and sleep in one of my shirts.”
She sighed and snuggled closer to him. Her warmth and the gentle brush of her fingers on his arm were a hundred times more relaxing than the two glasses of brandy he’d had. His breathing slowed down to match hers and he started to drift off.
“Sing me that song from the other night,” she murmured.
“Heard that, did you?” he asked. He moved a strand of hair off her face and kissed her forehead.
“I liked it. What was it?”
“Oh, a little bit of nothing,” he lied. “I made it up.” In truth, it was the song Gallifreyan newlyweds sang to each other on their wedding night after consummating the marriage. There was a second part that, when combined with the part he’d sung, made some of the most gorgeous harmony in the known universe, but of course Rose hadn’t known it. Singing it together was a symbolic way of knitting two separate souls into one for all time. For the Doctor, it was enough to that his was knitted to hers. He put his arms around her and rested his head against hers and sang it to her again. She hummed a few notes of the harmony without having been taught them; completely lucky guess, but it made the Doctor feel whole for the first time in a very long time. After that, he had no trouble falling asleep.
*****
The next morning Doctor Constantine brought them back to the TARDIS. They left before Nancy and Jamie woke up, at the Doctor’s insistence. There were entirely too many goodbyes waiting for him already. When they got out of the car, Doctor Constantine gave Rose a little hug and shook the Doctor’s hand.
“Stay out of trouble,” he said, and then got into the car and drove away without another word.
The Doctor smiled and put his arm around Rose while they walked to the TARDIS. “That man knows how to say goodbye,” he said. “Lot of people could take lessons from him. No tears, no fiddling around, just a parting message and off you go.”
“What are we gonna do now?” Rose asked.
“I thought we’d made a few quick stops, then go pop in to the Powell Estate for a visit. You can give your mum that Bazoolium trinket box that predicts the weather. It’ll go nicely on the new coffee table.”
“Good idea,” Rose said. “Maybe we can stay long enough to have a proper sit-down meal with her, too?”
The Doctor rolled his eyes as he started the TARDIS on its way. “And I was having such a good morning.”
*****
Ichisumi was just sitting down to dinner with Abunai-san. He was without Rose, and had changed back into the blonde, soft-spoken version of himself she had first met. He had no memory of his most recent visit to the okiya. She did not mention it.
“It is delightful to see you again,” he said, taking a drink of sake. “It’s been so long.”
“For me, I think perhaps it hasn’t been quite as long as it has for you,” she answered with a smile. It was as close as she came to mentioning his previous visit. There was something so different about him now, or, perhaps it was that he had been so different the last time she’d seen him. Now, as she sat with him in the dining room, there was a palpable distance between them, as if he preferred to keep everyone in the world at arms’ length. When he had come to the okiya with Rose, he had seemed so much more alive, so much more human. His smile went all the way to his eyes and his laughter had come without being forced. It was clear Rose had awoken something beautiful in him, and though Ichisumi loved her Abunai-san whenever she got to see him, she wished she could see the other version of him just once more.
As Abunai-san told her about his most recent visit to Gallifrey, Ichisumi’s gaze drifted to the windows, and her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the other Abunai-san and Rose standing outside the window, smiling at her. Ichisumi perked up and raised her hand to wave, but the Abunai-san standing outside the window shook his head and pointed at the back of the Abunai-san sitting at the dining room table. She nodded her understanding and went back to paying attention to her dinner companion. He turned to look out the window where she’d been looking, but no one was there.
“What did you see?” he asked, peering into the darkness outside the window. “Was someone out there?”
“Just some old friends passing by,” she answered, putting her hand on his. “Please, continue with your story. Everything is all right.”
*****
One random Thursday morning in 1998 in a little town outside of Chicago, Illinois, about an hour before dawn, an unexpected knock came to Bob Pace’s door. He got up from his leather easy chair and ambled his seventy–two year old body across the living room to answer the knock in his undershirt and jeans, suspenders hanging at his waist. When he opened the door, he beamed at the still-young man standing there, wearing a khaki fishing vest over his pinstripe suit and a floppy hat covered in fishing lures.
“Bob,” the Doctor said, throwing out his arms for a hug.
“Doctor!” Bob gathered his friend in his beefy arms and lifted him off the ground. Seventy-two and still able to lift a grown man. Let the doctors take that one and shove it.
The Doctor was grinning. “Are you busy today, old friend?”
“I’m never too busy for an old war buddy,” Bob cried, opening the screen door so the Doctor could come inside. “What brings you by these parts?”
“Well,” the Doctor said as he stepped into the house, “it turns out that today is the start of fishing season on the planet Thurbrook, and I thought if you weren’t doing anything, we could head up there and see how this season looks for Knaagfafish.”
Bob’s eyes went wide behind his black-rimmed glasses. “Those fish the size of your leg? Taste like lobster?”
“I’ve got all the fixings for a delicious shore lunch, a bottle of Malvonian brandy and nothing but time on my hands. Want to go for a ride in outer space?”
Bob clapped his hands together and went to his bedroom to get dressed. When he came back out, he put his arm around the Doctor as they walked to the TARDIS. “I’ve only been waiting for your skinny Limey butt to darken my doorway again for twenty years. I thought you were dead.”
“Sorry about that,” the Doctor said. “Time sometimes gets away from me. Hang on – did you say twenty years? What year is it again?”
“1998,” Bob answered as the Doctor showed him inside. He was not in the least surprised or even fazed by what he saw inside the TARDIS.
“How can that be twenty years, then?” the Doctor asked. “It’s been fifty, on the nose.”
Bob smiled. “You told me you’d say that when I saw you next. I’m glad you cut your hair – the afro really didn’t suit you.”
Rose was waiting in the TARDIS with a pink fishing hat and a t-shirt that read ‘Men love me. Fish fear me.’ “What afro?” she asked as Bob scooped her up into a bear hug.
“The Doctor and I had ourselves quite an adventure back in the 70s, but I guess he hasn’t had it yet. Timey-wimey, he calls it,” Bob explained. He sat in the seat by the controls as if he’d done so a hundred times before.
“Ah,” Rose said with a grin and a glance in the Doctor’s direction. “Sounds interesting.”
“I’d tell you all about it if I could, Rosie, but you know how it is, travelling with the Doctor,” Bob said as the TARDIS slipped into the predawn darkness.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 08:36 pm (UTC)And Bob's back! I wonder just what mischief the Doctor got into in order for him to actually have an afro, but that's one story that'll never fully be explained, I think. And oh, poor Doctor. Don't go back to London! Don't go!!! Bazoolium or not, you can't go!!
Sad to see this end, but I'm looking forward to whatever story you have planned next.
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Date: 2011-10-17 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 08:55 pm (UTC)Loved the timey-wimey ending though. Had to read it a couple of times to completely understand. So you mention the Bazoolium. Can I safely assume that they were not separated at Doomsday? Or is there more story to tell?
Is the afro doctor a later regeneration or 4? That is the only part I can't wrap my mind around.
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:02 pm (UTC)The Bazoolium was to indicate where this story fell in the overall timeline - they're going back to London for Army of Ghosts right after this story ends.
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:04 pm (UTC)I'm thinking of someday writing the adventure with 10 & Bob and the groovy, groovy afro. :)
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:05 pm (UTC)Oh, I can hardly wait for Afro!Ten and Bob!! There will be a manip, right??
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:05 pm (UTC)The first chapter of the next story starts getting written today (I hope!) :)
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:07 pm (UTC)LOL I think there should be! I'm starting notes on it. I think Rosey Grier might come into play as well... Lots of funk and elephant bell bottoms...
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:39 pm (UTC)Awwww! What a lovely ending! And Bob, yay! So since they were going to Jackie's first, I'm presuming you said "screw canon"? Please tell me you said "screw canon"?
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Date: 2011-10-17 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 10:34 pm (UTC)But oh my, any mention of that damn Bazoolium and my heart jumps in fear and sadness. I really wish they could have many more years together before they had to go back to London and then lose each other for (nearly) ever :(
Still, they've got something brilliant between them, if only for a short time, so why waste it? ;)
Perfect story, thanks so much for sharing it with us. I'm looking forward to reading more from you xx
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Date: 2011-10-17 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 11:53 pm (UTC)There's also a 70's era story with 10 and Bob in the hopper as well now lol. 10, Bob and Rosey Grier lol. :)
More (of everything lol) coming soon!!!! :)
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Date: 2011-10-17 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 06:34 am (UTC)Yay! Can't wait for this, too XD I loved Bob!
L x
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Date: 2011-10-18 06:53 am (UTC)I can't wait to read your other stories as they come out. <3
This whole story was wonderfully written, and kept me interested non-stop (which is hard to do). I love it!
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Date: 2011-10-18 07:02 am (UTC)*Twirls in delight!*
Gorgeous ending for a fantastic fic, sweetie!! Thank you for this!
*HUGS*
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Date: 2011-10-18 01:51 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Bob is very close to my heart, so it's nice that people have taken such a shine to him. :)
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Date: 2011-10-18 01:54 pm (UTC)Yes, there will be a 10 in an afro story. With big bell bottoms, dancing to the Jackson 5, quite possibly with Rosey Grier, cuz he's my favorite 70s person. :) It will be total mad crack with a buddy-cop feel, cuz Bob will be there.
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Date: 2011-10-18 09:10 pm (UTC)When you were mentioning the Doctor with a 'fro, I was thinking Six... LOL... but it seems you meant Ten! That's gotta be a sight!
I really loved how close to snapping he got at the hospital when trying to get appropriate help for Rose from people who wouldn't listen to him.
And now, you're writing a Doomsday fic! Off to read some more. :)
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Date: 2011-10-18 09:25 pm (UTC)10 keeps bopping through my head in a fro and bell bottoms...I think he's demanding to be written whenever I finish this Doomsday story lol
Yeah, one thing people should always do is listen to the Doctor, especially when he's a bit stressed out. :)
BEST YET!
Date: 2011-10-24 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 04:21 am (UTC)So glad you enjoyed it! :) Thank you for all the wonderful comments. :)