Greetings Whovians! This is a Ten/Rose/OC sort of story! Filled with odd planets, a quirky Time Lord, and cows. Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Only the OCs
"You're sure this tie is alright?"
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You have brown eyes, brown hair. How can you go wrong with a brown tie?"
"It's just," he whined, "I feel like I'm donning too much of the brown. Positive you don't like the red one?" He held his arms out, at least fifty ties dangling from his cufflinks to his shoulders. When she shrugged, he let out an irritated pout. "Come on then! Just because I'm indecisive doesn't give you the right to be as well."
"Doctor," she laughed, stepping closer to skirt off the dozens of ties from his arms. "You look fine."
The Doctor smiled, gentle lines forming across his buoyant face. His appearance was misleading; being over nine-hundred he looked rather handsome and not the least bit wrinkly. His short spiky hair dangled just above his bright eyes, hardly giving off any clue to his true age. Suppose it was one of the tricks he had being a Time Lord.
"Alright," the Doctor submitted, shucking the rest of the ties off, "Brown it is. It's amazing how time-consuming these things are."
"Do you need help tying that?"
"Honestly, you don't think I can tie this myself? Rose Tyler, doubting me." He tutted at her then hung the loose tie around his neck, beginning to knot it together. "Now I'm not even going to tell you where we're going."
Rose didn't seem too surprised by this as she climbed the few stairs up to the console. "Are we going into the past or the future?"
"Future," he played along, using one hand to hold his tie and the other to spin dials and press buttons.
"Hmm," she paused leaning against the control panel. "Before year five billion?"
The Doctor looked up from his dial-turning and smirked playfully at her. "I forget sometimes how long you've been travelling with me. Yes, before five billion." The half-done knot slipped beneath his fingers from lack of attention, turning back into a strand of silk fabric around his neck again.
"Is it alien? Not some parallel universe?"
"Very. Every sort of species you could think of. Hold on!" The room suddenly jerked to the right violently, a great humming filling their ears. Both Rose and the Doctor took hold of the railings, disregarding the ships spinning and caterwauling. They spun about for a short stretch until the ship landed against something hard and solid like a mountain, making its passengers grips slip and let them fall sharply on their rumps.
Rose began straddling back onto her feet as soon as the ship stopped moving. "Isn't there something here that can keep the ship from rocking us all over?" she grimaced.
"The stabilizers you mean. Yeah, I could use them, but what fun would time travel be without hitting a few rough patches?" The Doctor tried coaxing, barely wavered by the eccentric ride, trying again to knot his tie while pressing buttons.
"Was that it? Are we here?"
"Here as in- curse it all, this tie is jinxed!" he burst out, undoing the lopsided knot. Rose laughed at his frustration and took the tie from his hands, smoothly wrapping one side of the tie around the other, loosely paying attention to how close he was.
Through all her travels with the mystery Doctor she couldn't deny the subtle siege of attraction pulling at her heart strings. The mix of bravery and wit and compassion was overwhelming for the nineteen year old London native. How he would value her opinion with smiles and hugs and name every star in the sky without flaw left her twitterpating mind wondering whether he chose his actions on purpose or out of childish play.
"There," she announced. "Now you look fine." Rose tightened the knot slightly, grazing his Adam's apple with the back of her finger. Almost immediately, color lightened her face.
"What would I be without you Rose Tyler?" The Doctor grinned cheerily, returning to his dials without hastening. For a moment Rose just stood there, scowling mildly at his back. Her face immediately changed when he spun back around. "Don't wait for me; go see what's out there! You have a whole world waiting for you."
Rose didn't argue, stepping down from the console and wrapped her hands around the handles of the door. How many times had she done this, held her breath in anticipation for the unknown world behind two wooden police box doors; felt her heart drum madly against her chest for fear of the Doctor's many devices and clever ideas to finally slip? As far as she knew her travels with the Doctor were timeless.
Pushing the doors open, Rose nearly hammered several people in the face. The street they had landed in was full of people: blue, green, beige, every color. She apologized to the ones she nearly hit, but they only scowled back, their arms overflowing with objects.
"Doctor?" Rose called behind her, "Where did you say we are?"
" Planet Chal, home of The Interplanetary Trade Center and," he paused, striding towards the doors, "Sixty-three million lightyears from Earth." Looking outside, he added, "Looks like we landed right in the heart of the place. Hope we didn't hit anything important."
"Hey you! In the box!" A squawky voice shrilled over the booming of the crowds. "What do you think you're doing? Do you even know where you landed?" A man with overly large horns protruding from his head began pushing through the people, making his way towards the box.
Rose leaned over to the Doctor. "Speak of the devil…"
"Oh, that was just mean," he shook his head. "Hello! Lovely day isn't it?" he called to the horned man.
"You have just landed your oversized trash can ontop of my produce stand! What's so lovely about that?" The man slammed his elbow through a straggly family of people that resembled the height, width and color of green beans.
The Doctor pushed Rose out of the doorway and into the street as the horned man came closer, stepping out himself and closing the doors behind him. No reason for the rest of the street to see inside the police box.
"Tell you what," he began when the man was in close range, "I'll pay for all the damages. Sorry, my fault." The Doctor reached deep into his trench coat pocket and brought out a thick wad of currency. The horned man's anger fled at the sight of the money.
"How much is that?"
"Much more than what your stand and produce cost. But I'm asking a favor along with this. What my 'oversized trash can' for me would you?" The Doctor pointed behind him at his ship the Tardis. It was a blue police box, not overly strange but in the market place the blue box stood out profoundly.
The man nodded, not hesitating at the offer. "I'd watch paint dry for that, sir."
Pleased, the Doctor gave the money to the horned man and promised he'd be back before dark. He turned to Rose. "Easily settled. Where do you want to go first?"
She was stunned for a moment, looking out at the crowds. "I don't even know what's here!"
"There's food, kitchenware, musical instruments, jewelry, practically anything you can think of." The Doctor linked his arm in hers, pulling them both into the stream of people. "Just name it."
Rose pounded her head, thinking for something zany and unusual. What was there that she could never have in London? On Earth let alone? Her eyes darted over to a group of darkly clothed people sitting on a bench, eating some sort of ice cream that changed colors to blend in with its surroundings.
"Ice cream," she told him. As if a light bulb had gone off behind his eyes, the Doctor beamed down at her.
"Ice cream it is! It's a bit of a walk, but well worth it. There's this little shop just past the livestock barns that makes these little things that swirl at the top and taste like a starburst. Just fantastic!"
Walking instep with each other, the Doctor continued talking, leading them through the contrastive clans of shoppers and sellers. From their tents and tables they would call out their low prices and guarantees, waving the latest gadget or object over their heads.
"How big is this interplanetary market?" Rose asked as they passed through a row of shops selling boiled animal heads that smelled surprisingly appetizing.
"Well, it takes up half of the planet. I'd say, roughly, it's the size of your solar systems Pluto. At first they had a horrible time organizing it all, but now it's been divided into three divisions. Lucky for us we landed in the food division.
"It's so big, in fact," the Doctor continued, turning a sharp corner down a steamy alleyway where there were hardly any people, "That it has developed its own currency." He reached into his pocket again, pulling out another wad of bills. "They're called Platos."
"What, like the philosopher?" Rose questioned, curiously taking a bill to inspect.
"That's the thing. It's not like the philosopher. These people don't even know who Plato was." The alleyway ended, bridging back into the main streets of the market. "It only took thirty centuries to forget he existed. Brilliant man, though. Met him once."
"Just shows that a person can't be remembered forever, I guess," Rose murmured, returning the bill to the Doctor's coat.
Another ten minutes passed, the atmosphere of the congested marketplace turning more into a rural landscape. Farms began popping up with rows of strangely shaped produce and the occasional cow or sheep. Large pens packed with varying species of animals replaced the shops, filling the street with the scent of dung and sweat. Around them, people with fine business clothes and worn work outfits stood around either looking at the animals or talking to each other.
"Fascinating the other cultures of the planets. To some people a cow such as that is a rarity." He pointed over to one of the pens. It was filled with earth cattle, their black bodies pressing tightly against the fence, their eyes wide. Outside the pen two men stood, one shouting orders to someone on the inside of the pen and the other slightly dozing in his business clothes. A beastly wail broke through the herd of cattle.
Rose and the Doctor froze, their eyes locked on the pen. "What was that?" she asked aloud.
"What's she doin' now?" The man outside the fence called out.
"She won't budge."
"Shock her again!"
"This is ridiculous," the other man outside the fence sniveled. "You said she was mellow, but now she won't move?"
"You're gettin' her for meat. What does it matter if she cooperates?" The man spit tar from his mouth. Another holler came from inside the pen.
"Doctor, let's go-"
"Hold on Rose," he said, "I want to see this." People in the street began watching the exchange as the wails became louder.
The trouble cow emerged out of the pen with a man behind her. Immediately the bovine's expression unnerved the Doctor; her darting glances and nervous shaking suggested more than simple cow thoughts crossing this cow's mind. Animals aren't so observant, he assured himself.
The cow stopped again, her legs shaking and her mouth frothing at the corners. The man with the prodding stick didn't waste a moment to jab her again, making her holler.
"There's your cow, sir," the tar-spitter said.
"I don't want it." The business man turned his gaze to the man. "Had I known before what she looked like and how she was treated I wouldn't have gone to the trouble."
The man pushed himself off the fence and glared fiercely at the business man. "Hold up. You're sayin' now after all the trouble I put my man through getting the beast that you won't buy it?"
"Practices such as yours shouldn't be supported." The business man's face became a hue of red, his voice dangerous and threatening.
"You said you were buyin' this beast," the tar-spitter barked back, "And I'm goin' to see to it this transaction's finished."
Rose felt the Doctor's arm slip from hers, his strides easily heading towards the heat of the problem. She felt the urge to follow after him, but the way the tar spitting man scowled at anything that moved she stayed back and watched the Doctor step forward brightly into the dispute.
This was one of the more wonderful traits of the Time Lord. Whenever a problem presented itself, whether life-threatening or a simple quarrel such as this, the Doctor was never shy to take on the challenge. He hardly took a step in the wings of the galaxies; he owned the center stage as far as he was concerned.
Leaning to the side, she tried to make out what the Doctor was saying to the men, but their voices had become too low and distant to make out. He pointed several times to the cow, nodding his head. Slowly, the expressions of the business man and the herdsmen softened towards the Doctor until the tar spitter nodded firmly and held his hand out to the Doctor. Not wasting a moment, he took hold and shook his hand.
Around the back of the cattle pen a striking businessman with green, warty skin stepped out. He was followed by a lean younger man, probably his assistant Rose guessed. He looked just as outlandish as the green man, wearing a tight-fitting suit jacket that obviously was digging into his blue neck.
The stranger and his assistant approached the mismatched group, shaking hands and laughing. Rose squinted in the sunlight; this stranger apparently knew the herdsmen, joking with them and offering them some sort of tobacco from a pouch. They stood like this for another ten minutes, their chatter prolonging while Rose grew more impatient by the second.
Finally fed up, Rose started tromping over to the group, about to pull the Doctor out of the friendly little circle, when he tilted his head so as to catch her eye. He looked to her as if saying, 'Alright, I'm coming. Don't get your socks in a knot.' Quickly he excused himself from the group, shaking hands with the men. The man keeping watch on the cow handed over the bridle to the Doctor and tipped his hat.
Rose, rooted to the ground, stood dumbfounded as the Doctor walked towards her with the cow in tow.
"Right, ice cream?" he smiled.
"You bought a cow?" Rose blurted, glancing between the Doctor and his new companion.
He looked confused. "Well, of course. I wasn't going to leave them quarrelling amongst themselves nor leave such a graceful animal to be harmed like that." The cow lifted her tail, a solid thwap of a cow pat falling on the street. The Doctor laughed. "Wonderful thing. What should I name her? She was only given a number, and I think she deserves better."
"It's a cow," Rose retorted, her nose curling at the fresh dung, "Doesn't matter to much, does it?" For a passing moment Rose swore she saw a flicker of hurt in the cow's eyes, her brows bending so to suggest pain from the insult.
"Is that necessary?" The Doctor rested a comforting hand on her wiry back, patting it gingerly. "Don't listen to her, "he spoke to the cow, "I don't think she understands you quite yet."
"Now what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that there seems to be more in these cattle," he pointed behind him, "than meets the eye. You're a keeper, you are," the Doctor promised his bovine friend, "Worth much more than a meal. No, you have a mind in there that has a story to tell." He was contemplating mostly to himself then, stroking the gnarly fur.
Rose paused, not wanting to break his concentration. "And what's that?" she asked coolly.
"No idea! Maybe ice cream will help."
Thanks for reading! Keep a weathered eye for more chapters ahead!