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megabadbunny · 6 years

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Minuet, Part V

She wonders if it’s midnight, yet, if her carriage will poof back into a pumpkin and her gown return to rags.

(Certainly no prince will come calling after her, not after the way she behaved tonight.)

***

(ten/rose angsty post-gitf au/fixit; this part (and all parts on ff.net) is sfw (minor exception for brief language); be warned that the next chapter has teh smuts <3)

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Minuet, Part V

Beneath a canopy of ever-brightening lightning dancing across the sky, dazzling white slicing through a canvas of sapphire-blues and bruise-purples and ominous reds, the afternoon slowly slides into the evening. Certainly, Rose is sure things happen during this time; she’s equally sure she has no idea what they are, and she doesn’t care.

(Uruud shows her to her room. It’s fine. It’s a room. It’s got a bed. Before Rose has a chance to poke around anymore than that, Mickey stops by with an invitation—We’re off to do some investigating, fancy a ride-along?—and that look on his face, all nervousness and uncertainty mixed with apprehensive hope, just cements in Rose’s mind how very bad everything is, if the Doctor can’t even be arsed to come in here himself like he normally would. Rose begs off in favor of a nap, and ignores the worry that plays across Mickey’s face after. But it wasn’t entirely a lie, because blessedly, the bed has got a canopy to block out the light-show blaring through the glass ceiling above, and the temptation to smother her woes in an ocean of silky bedclothes and feather-stuffed pillows is indeed quite strong. But Rose just sits on the bed instead, arms crossed and toes tapping and eyes staring at nothing in particular while her brain replays the last twelve hours like some kind of horrid sitcom on syndication, playing over and over and over and over.)

Right on schedule, the first ritual begins—or rather, the first “ritual”, as Rose thinks of it, considering that even if it’s presented like a Therran Communion, it seems a lot more like a threadbare excuse for the guests at the Temple to pull on fancy clothes and get blind-stinking drunk. Normally, the whole thing might delight Rose, the chance to doll up and immerse herself completely in the local culture, taste a range of fine alien libations and make new friends and maybe even flirt a little, but now it just seems sort of pointless and silly, a bunch of children playing at being adults with their fancy-dress and their fermented Britvic.

(Uruud brings a gown for Rose to wear to dinner. Rationally, she recognizes that it’s quite an elegant thing, all slim-fitted bodice and voluminous skirts and Prussian blue velvety-softness; less rationally, after Mickey pops back by her room with news of his and the Doctor’s escapades—Can’t find that High Chauncery bloke anywhere, none of the Votaries know where he’s got off to, what do you think of that?—Rose wonders how the fabric would hold up if she tore it to straps and fashioned herself an escape rope, climbing out the window and deserting this stupid fancy place and its even stupider guests like a princess absconding from her tower. Planet-consuming lightning storms can’t be all that dangerous, right?)

Dinner takes place, at some point, somewhere. A grand hall, probably, but Rose is three swallows deep into her third (or fourth?) glass of so-called “ritual wine” and things are starting to get just the littlest bit blurry around the edges. Mostly she notices that the hall is packed full of people, and it’s loud, and there’s food, and a whole host of traditions accompanying it all. Each food item is laden with symbolic meaning, and eaten only after a session of chant-and-repeat, the entire dining hall buzzing with the rhythmic hum of people reciting scripture, lifting their faces toward the lightning scrawling overhead. Rose moves her lips along with everyone else, if only not to disrespect Uruud and the other Votaries, and after, she dutifully places the food into her mouth and chews and swallows, because it’s there, and she should, regardless of the protests of the seized-up beartrap that seems to have replaced her stomach. Probably some of the food she eats is tasty, and some of it isn’t. She doesn’t notice one way or the other.

(Uruud is kind enough to help Rose with her hair and makeup, styling both after the latest high Therran fashions, all gently sculptural curls and dew-glittering glaze painted on her skin. The whole process is so mirror-reminiscent of her time in France that Rose can’t decide whether to laugh or cry; in an effort to convince herself that she has, in fact, been rescued by the Doctor, and is not still somehow trapped millennia in the past surrounded by strangers and unknown customs and unspoken rules, she asks Uruud any and every question she can think of, and absorbs herself in their replies. She inquires about their choice to become a Votary (they were Called) and if they’ve got any family (two parents, three siblings) and the meaning of the ornamental dots on each Therran’s face (one dot for every Allstorm they’ve survived, according to tradition hearkening back to the ancient times, and with a smile, Uruud places a gem beneath Rose’s lower lip, gifting her with a temporary honorary badge of her own). Rose encourages them to speak until the words flow as freely as the wine outside, and privately takes comfort in the paint they brush over her skin. When they’re done, Rose’s collarbone sparkles as if covered with a necklace, her glitters as if topped with a tiara, and her back could almost sport a pair of wings glinting in the flashing light. It feels like a shield, a second skin, a mask, one that doesn’t slip even when Rose reunites with Mickey and the Doctor in the dining hall and the latter barely manages to spare her a glance.)

Downing the rest of her fourth (possibly fifth) glass of wine, Rose tries not to stare at Mickey and the Doctor, but it’s sort of difficult considering that they’re seated directly across from her. They both look quite sharp in their suits, tailored to perfection by talented Votaries, Rose assumes. (Distinctly tuxlike, their suits are; Rose wonders if they requested them specifically or if tuxes are just some sort of universal standard, somehow.) Between that and the Doctor’s customary chattiness, it isn’t long before most of the occupants of their table start leaning in to hear more from this fascinating couple, this charming Doctor fellow and his pretty-boy husband Mickey.

(Unfortunately, Rose suspects there’s nothing Uruud can do to help her with that particular mess.)

“And how did you two get together?” asks a friendly cat-person, ears swiveled forward in interest.

“He stole my girlfriend,” Mickey deadpans.

Clapping him on the back, the Doctor laughs. “Aww, what a sense of humor my beloved has!” he chuckles. “We did meet through Rose, actually—yes, that’s her right there, across the table, hullo Rose—but there was no romance involved. At least, not at first,” he adds with a wink sent Mickey’s way, and Rose struggles not to roll her eyes, or throw up, or both. “That’s all he meant. Isn’t that right, Honey Bear?”

“Sure is, Fudge Nugget.”

“See, Rose and I met through her workplace. You know how it goes, she’s closing up shop, you’re scheduled to do demolition on said shop, you run into each other on the lift in a classic meeting-your-future-husband’s-best-mate-meetcute. Instant friendship! Wouldn’t you say, Pootsy-Pie?”

“Whatever you say, Pudgy McGee.”

“Let’s just say Rose found me very charming, once upon a time,” the Doctor continues, “and Mickey here, feeling jealous that someone was encroaching on the territory of his best mate—that’s Rose, hullo again, Rose—well, he decided that he should find out what all this cattywhumpus was about, meet this Doctor bloke that Rose couldn’t stop raving over. And the rest, as they say, is history. Wouldn’t you agree, my little Muffin Top?”

“You got it, Sugar Tits.”

Rose watches as the Doctor chokes on his wine and Mickey pats him on the back perhaps just a little more enthusiastically than the situation warrants. The Doctor shoots him a teeth-gritted grin afterward and Mickey just smiles the universe’s most beatific serene smile. And that, for whatever reason, inspires Rose with a funny little thought.

“My dear Doctor,” she says sweetly, indulging in a delicate sip of her wine, “that’s all very good and well, but you must realize that isn’t actually what our friend here was asking. She wants to know about how the two of you became a couple.”

Rose locks eyes with him over the table, affecting a friendly smile. “She wants to know how the two of you fell in love.”

It’s doubtful that anyone else at the table registers the shadow that flickers over the Doctor’s face; it’s gone as soon as it appears, and the Doctor answers with barely a hitch.

“Well, I think I’ve hogged the spotlight long enough,” he says to Mickey. “Why don’t you tell them, my love?”

Mickey’s glee can barely restrain itself, oozing out the seams as he grins like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, no, my pet,” he says, planting his elbows on the table and his chin in both hands, watching the Doctor with adoring eyes, “I insist that you tell them. You do it so wonderfully, after all.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” replies the Doctor, his voice only a little strained as everyone aww’s around them, and Rose bites her lip to keep from laughing.

“So, that part of the story is—here we come to a part that’s—well, it’s a little difficult to know where to start, is all,” the Doctor says, tugging nervously on one ear. “It just feels like we’ve been in love for so long, you see, that it’s all sort of rolled together into one giant…love mass. Sort of like, y’know. The Thing or something.”

“Oh, stop that,” Rose laughs. “He’s just being shy,” she tells the rest of the table. “He doesn’t want any of you to know about all the late-night chats the two of us had together, with him just gushing on and on about how wonderful Mickey was, how handsome he is, how lucky the Doctor is to have him, all that.”

“Ah, that might be just the slightest smidge of an exaggeration—”

“No, no, go on,” Mickey says, his grin widening until his face might split from it. “Tell everyone how wonderful I am!”

“He’d wax poetical for hours about the beauty of Mickey’s eyes,” Rose says when the Doctor doesn’t reply.

“Can’t blame him, they’re quite nice,” Mickey adds.

“He’d talk about how safe and warm he felt in Mickey’s arms.”

“Front-row tickets to the gunshow, right here.”

“But by far, I think his very favorite thing about Mickey has always been his intellect,” Rose continues, choking down her laughter as the Doctor’s mouth purses thinner and thinner. “In fact, I used to stay up late reassuring him that, no, Mickey wasn’t too smart for him—”

“Aww, babe,” says Mickey, looping an arm around the Doctor’s shoulders.

“—but he just insisted that no matter how hard he tried, he’d never be Mickey’s intellectual equal,” Rose says, disguising her snickers as a cough. “In fact, after their first kiss, the Doctor called me straightaway to tell me—”

“His hands,” the Doctor blurts out, and everyone at the table turns back to him.

“Sorry?” asks the cat-person from earlier.

The Doctor doesn’t spare a glance for her; his eyes are locked squarely on Rose.

“Just—they’re nice hands,” the Doctor says, with a shrug. “Good for holding. That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? A hand to hold. Wouldn’t you say, Rose?”

She doesn’t reply; she’s too busy watching his fingers as they entwine with Mickey’s hand on his shoulder, and once again, the table lights up with the sounds of an audience enraptured, the cat-person pressing her paw to her chest at the cuteness of it all. The conversation starts again, picking up where it left off, but it’s all just white noise to Rose’s ears now as she watches Mickey and the Doctor resituate themselves to clasp their hands together atop the table, practically beneath Rose’s nose. The Doctor even finishes his dinner one-handed to accommodate the whole thing, eating and drinking with his left hand like he does it all the time, and it might all be terribly funny if his thumb wasn’t absentmindedly stroking over Mickey’s knuckle, the way it does with Rose.

The way it used to do.

Something about the mindless meaninglessness of the gesture sets klaxons blaring in Rose’s head, screaming at her for her stupidity, for ever thinking anything the Doctor did anything meaningful, for ever thinking she was anything more than a joke to him, just a joke, a joke, a worthless stupid joke and nothing he says ever means anything and you’re an idiot for ever thinking it did and the words ricochet around her skull over and over until she drowns it out with another glass of wine.

“Good stuff, isn’t it?” the Doctor asks cheerfully, and a second later, Rose realizes he’s talking to her. “Therran wine is quite lovely—when you’re not choking on it, anyway.”

The other occupants at the table laugh politely, nodding along.

“Just a tad potent, though,” the Doctor adds. “A few glasses is really all anyone needs. Everything in moderation, hm?”

He looks at Rose meaningfully, eyes darting to the glass in her hand. She wonders if he’s been keeping track of her intake this whole time, if he’s trying to say, in that stupid precious roundabout way of his, that she’s had enough, maybe more than. Probably the Doctor is right, but then again, probably if he thinks she should stop, then probably he should just come out and say it. She’s bloody well sick of all this dancing around.

With a serene smile of her own, Rose pours herself another glass. “Cheers to moderation,” she says, tilting the glass in a toast before she downs its contents in one gulp.

“Cheers!” shouts Mickey and everyone else along the table, following suit with their glasses clinking and wine-draining after, but the Doctor doesn’t drink, doesn’t cheer, doesn’t tear his eyes away from Rose. She forces herself to hold his gaze, wills her face to turn to stone so nothing can show through. If he can do it whenever he wants, then so can she.

“Well, aren’t we having a lovely time?” purrs a soft voice behind Rose, and she turns to see the scarlet-dressed woman from earlier, now swathed in a crimson gown so gorgeous it makes Rose’s eyes water. “Whatever is happening over here, it’s far more fascinating than the events transpiring at my table.”

“Ah, then you should join us!” declares the Doctor. “Not at the table, though. We were just leaving.”

The woman piques an immaculate eyebrow in interest. “Oh?” she says. “Leaving for where?”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, confused, and Rose’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Leaving for where?”

“Not entirely sure yet, but I thought we might nose about a bit,” explains the Doctor, standing up from the table. “Get the lay of the land, go for the inside scoop, poke our beaks in where they aren’t wanted, so to speak. See what we can learn about this Allstorm business and why it’s suddenly taking place over the course of a month instead of a handful of days. The Votaries don’t seem to know anything, the computers are functionally worthless, and for the life of me I can’t seem to find any trace of the High Chauncery anywhere.”

Nodding, the woman frowns. “He has not been seen for many years now, it’s true,” she says slowly.

“Exactly. For all intents and purposes, he’s vanished, along with anyone else who might have a clue about what’s going on. It’s all just a little bit funny, don’t you think?”

In her peripheral vision, Rose sees Mickey trying to catch her eye—he’s alarmed at the Doctor’s sudden candor with this stranger, she knows. But Rose doesn’t share his gaze, or his worries. She knows exactly what the Doctor is doing, or what it feels like he’s doing, anyway, and she’s too busy sensing every ounce of the acid boiling up in her throat to weigh Mickey’s concerns.

“Oh, my,” the woman is saying now. “A conspiracy theory. How intriguing!”

“It is, at that. Would you care to join us?”

As if she can sense the daggers that Rose is glaring at the Doctor—or if she can see them, which, she probably can, Rose is fairly certain she’s being none-too-subtle at the moment—the woman glances between the two of them, hesitating. “I wouldn’t want to intrude…”

“Excellent,” Rose interjects, only wobbling a little bit as she stands up from the table. “We’ll just see you around, then—”

“Oh, nonsense, it’s no intrusion, none at all,” interrupts the Doctor, circling round the table so he can extend an elbow to the woman. “Shall we?”

Once again, the woman looks back at Rose (what, is she asking permission? Is she gloating?) before accepting the Doctor’s offer, threading her arm through his with a gracious “I think we shall.”

Without waiting for Rose (or even his supposed husband, for that matter), the Doctor takes off, arm-in-arm with the strange woman. Rose watches them as they stride away, her hands balling into fists. Nonplussed, Mickey turns around just long enough to offer Rose a confused shrug before he jogs after the Doctor and his newfound friend, or the latest thing that captured his five-second attention span, or whatever this woman is.

Sighing darkly, Rose swipes a bottle of wine off a passing tray and starts drinking.

Naami, as the woman introduces herself, soon proves herself to be quite charming (not two minutes after they’ve left the dining hall, and already Mickey and the Doctor are more relaxed than they’ve been all day) as well as delicately humorous (as evidenced by Mickey and the Doctor’s smiles and laughter, and not in that polite why you do with strangers at a party) not to mention annoyingly diplomatic (as proven by her continual attempts to rope Rose into the conversation, no matter how noncommittal Rose’s responding hums and grunts become). She’s also devastatingly insightful, if the Doctor’s eager conversation with her regarding Therran politics and society are anything to go by. In short, Naami turns out to be the sort of person that’s difficult to hate—which, of course, only makes you want to hate them all the more.

“So, Rose,” says Naami conversationally—as if the four of them aren’t creeping quietly through the Temple archives, as if the Doctor didn’t break them in with the sonic so he could hack into the information network, as if they aren’t all constantly swiveling at every tiny noise and every flash of light up above because what if it’s a guard this time?—“Far be it from me to eavesdrop, but even from my table, I heard quite a bit about your companions this evening, and very little of you. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

She shoots Rose a winning smile, perfect teeth framed by ideal sweetheart-shaped lips, and it lights up something somewhere in the dimming recesses of Rose’s alcohol-warmed brain. It occurs to her that this woman, this upper-class, gold-gilded, well-mannered prat, can probably smell an Estate girl from a hundred miles away, just like half the shrews at the French court before Reinette set them all to rights, or a shark scenting blood on the water. Any other day, Rose’s hackles might rise at the thought, but now, she just chuckles under her breath, swaying ever-so-slightly on her feet. What has she got to be ashamed of, what has she got to hide? It isn’t like she can make this woman’s opinion of her any worse, nor, at this point, would she even care if she did.

“Pretty general question. Why don’t you be more specific?” Rose asks, swigging from her bottle.

“All right. Where did you grow up?”

“A nice, big ol’ trash-heap in the middle of nowhere,” Rose replies brightly.

Mickey clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “Oh, come on, Rose. The Estate’s not that bad.”

“Sure it’s not, if you don’t mind a surplus of graffiti and crime and overflowing trash bins,” Rose shoots back. “Next question?”

The briefest flash of uncertainty flickers across Naami’s features before she tries again, her smile sliding back into place like it never left. “What inspired you to go traveling with Mickey and the Doctor?”

“Eh, you know how it is. Girl like me, you’ve got three options: the bloke who hits you, the bloke who cheats on you, or the bloke who promises you adventure and then up and changes his personality on you, dragging you around like so much baggage from star to star,” Rose counts off, steadfastly ignoring whether or not the Doctor reacts to any of the words streaming out of her mouth. “So I figure, hey, at least with the last option, I’m out of the house. Next?”

“Erm, very well, then,” says Naami, brow knitted in concern before she opts for what surely must seem like safe territory. “What about your friends, your significant other, your family? Tell me about them.”

“Sure thing,” Rose replies, downing another gulp of wine. “Which one would you like to hear about first—my single, lonely, unemployed mum, or my dead dad?”

“Jesus, Rose,” Mickey breathes, as Naami’s eyes widen with shock. Rose absolutely expects her to form that perfect mouth into the shape of a pout, her big beautiful eyes brimming with false tears as sublime and round as the most luxurious of pearls while she gently pats Rose’s hand, trying to hide her cringe as her delicate princess-skin comes into contact with such a low commoner, all while she murmurs some retch-worthy patronizing claptrap about Oh, you poor thing, you poor wretched little thing, no wonder these generous two men took such pity on you, no wonder you’re all alone.

Rose nearly jumps out of her skin when Naami gently grasps her shoulder instead. “My gods, I’m so sorry,” Naami says quietly, and—and is Rose imagining things, or does she look like she actually means it? “Was it—was it very recent?”

Taken aback, Rose stammers, searching for words, but Naami just shakes herself. “Oh, of course, I’m so sorry, my dear; of course you don’t want to talk about such things with a stranger,” she says. “I only thought to ask because you seemed unusually out-of-sorts for someone attending the Allstorm celebration, and stupid me, I’m nosy even on the best of days and that just makes it even more of a problem with the attraction to emotionally unavailable people—but you didn’t ask about all that, I’m sorry, I’m babbling!”

She takes Rose’s free hand in both of hers, and she looks so sincere, so bleeding earnest, that Rose can’t help but believe her. “Please forgive my impudence,” Naami says, “and please accept my condolences for you and your mother. What a dreadful thing to happen. I’m really so sorry, darling.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Naami,” the Doctor pipes up, typing away at a computer terminal and frowning when he doesn’t like what he sees. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Rose replies, her voice shaking. “Why be upset about that when there are so many more current things to be angry about?”

The clickety-clack of the Doctor’s fingers over the keyboard grows a little louder, his fingers tapping the keys just a little harder. “Or perhaps you could retire for the night, stop drinking for five entire minutes.”

“Oi, now, am I gonna have to separate you two?” Mickey jokes feebly, but Rose ignores him.

“Why, what’s wrong, Doctor?” she asks. “Am I embarrassing you?”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” is the quiet reply.

Shame floods through Rose, leaving her lightheaded. Distantly, she hears Mickey snapping at the Doctor, hears the anger in his voice as he leaps to her defense, but she can’t hear his actual words over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears; she can only feel the hot anger of them, and the cool nothingness of the Doctor’s nonexistent reply. Rose’s cheeks burn and her stomach churns and she feels like she might be sick.

“Actually, I could do with a bit of a rest myself,” Naami tells Rose, her well-manicured hands fidgeting nervously. “Would you like company on your walk back, Rose?”

“No, ta,” says Rose tiredly, avoiding looking Naami in the eye; it’s exhausting to be so wrong about so many things all in one day, and she’s not quite ready to admit to herself that Naami may actually be a decent person, that maybe she lashed out at her without reason. Just another thing to make her want to curl up into herself like a pillbug until she dries out on the front porch, nothing but a hollow little husk left behind. “Don’t worry. He’s all yours.”

She leaves before anyone can stop her, skirts gathered in one hand, wine bottle in the other. Before too long, she finds her room again and slips out of her shoes, leaving them behind her as she walks, like the world’s most pathetic drunken Cinderella. She wonders if it’s midnight, yet, if her carriage will poof back into a pumpkin and her gown return to rags.

(Certainly no prince will come calling after her, not after the way she behaved tonight.)

Climbing into bed with her illicit treasure, Rose drinks until her eyes won’t stay open any longer.

***

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