Rose Tyler grew up in the town of Powell, which was a charming little place where not much of anything happened for the first 19 years of her life. Which was all good and well to Rose, for she was the middle child of three, and it has always been known that the middle child of three will always be the least accomplished in the family. The middle child of three have never gone on any great adventures, or gotten top marks, or even married very well. It was not that Rose Tyler wasn't lovely in her own right, but she was not quite as lovely as Reinette, her younger sister. And it was not that Rose Tyler was not bright or charming, but she just was not as bright or charming as her elder sister, Sarah-Jane.
Rose had grown accustomed to this lifestyle though, because there just was nothing to do about it. Her father had died when Reinette was just a baby, and there would be no escaping the curse of the middle child of three. So Rose did what any sensible middle child would do, she accepted her lot in life and continued on with her life, dull as it may have been.
"Look it's the Doctor's castle!" Reinette said as she pressed herself up against the counter to get a better look out the storefront window. She sounded a bit breathless, and Rose, who was sensibly continuing her work in the back room, smiled to herself. Her little sister Reinette always seemed to be brimming to find the most perfect match, which was as likely for her as it would be for Rose to find adventure in her life. As the fates had always spoke about the middle child, they spoke about the youngest and eldest too. Reinette, as most youngest siblings would do, would be sent off to be taught by the brightest and cleverest of the world. Sarah-Jane, as the eldest, would go off in a different direction and be taught to be a proper wife.
"Are you frightened Reinette?" Sarah-Jane's soft voice asked from the front room of Henrik's, their little store all three siblings worked in.
"Of course I am!" Reinette squeaked out.
"Oh but you shouldn't be, dear heart, for the Doctor only steals the heart of the most beautiful women in the land." Sarah-Jane teased.
"You are so mean to me!" But the two siblings were laughing.
Rose pushed herself up straight in her stool to peer out the small window in the workspace. She watched the rather magnificent castle wheeze and trudge across the far horizon. Rose had never understood why it was called a moving castle, the moving bit she understood, for it was indeed, moving, but it didn't look like any of the castles she had heard described. The Doctor's castle, if that's what he preferred it to be called, and who was going to argue with a wizard who stole the hearts of beautiful maidens? But the castle was large and made of dark blue wood and metal. It was twisted and lumped together and Rose didn't have the faintest idea of how it moved, let alone how anyone could possible inhabit it, but what did she know? She was just the middle child of three after all.
"Rose, come along, you have done more than enough work for today," Sarah-Jane's soft voice said from the doorway to the small workspace.
"Plus it is our last night together, would you rather spend it in this dingy dark place than with your own family?" Reinette pouted from behind her elder, and taller sister.
"Reinette, you shouldn't guilt her into spending time with us, if she doesn't want to then that is her own choice." Rose sighed and rolled her eyes at her sister's antics, but ultimately stood up and brushed off her long skirt.
"That was rather nice Sarah-Jane, you will have your husband doing everything you wish without him even realizing it." Reinette complimented before flouncing off back into the main room, so she missed the dark look cross her eldest sisters face. Rose, who had remained in her spot, however did not miss it. Sarah-Jane, upon noticing she had her younger sisters gaze upon her, smiled and held out her arm in invitation.
"Come along Rose, I bet mother has made shepherds pie for our going away dinner." The two elder Tyler sisters laughed as Reinette groaned dramatically. "Don't be mean Reinette, her food has much improved over the past couple years."
"Yes, no one has gotten ill in quite a while, have they?" Reinette deadpanned, earning laughter from both her sisters as they all piled out of the small shop, Rose locking it behind them, and headed off down the street towards their home.
"There is the Doctor's castle again!" Sarah-Jane spoke up, pointing to the horizon before the castle disappeared behind the thick cover of forest.
"Sarah-Jane, you look disappointed that it is gone." Reinette teased.
"As horrible as the wizard must be, I can't help but wonder what he knows. How much he must have seen, it would be a wonderful thing to be able to pick his brain." Sarah-Jane said wistfully, causing her sisters to laugh.
"You will steal the brains of the clever and he will take the hearts of the beautiful, you two would make the most disgustingly lovely couple." Reinette spoke solemnly, nodding as they entered their small house.
Rose could not help but wonder what the house would be like after her lively sisters had left. As the middle child she was not clever nor funny, and she knew there would be a gaping hole left in their family that she could not even begin to fill. Rose's days would be filled with working in the shop and having dinner with her mum, or alone when her mum was out, which was quite often. Sarah-Jane would become even lovelier and accomplished while Reinette would set out and travel, have her own adventures.
Rose tried to keep the laughter and warmth of that last night with her sisters close to her, but as the days and nights dragged on, one after another, those happy feelings and memories began to fade away until she could hardly remember a time when there was a stunning silence that haunted her. It was an echoing thing, the silence, how something so quiet could be so deafeningly loud, she would never know. Rose never thought she would be the type to be bothered by it, but it began to feel like a physical weight against her, weighing her down until her bones and muscles ached with it.
So Rose began to talk to herself. She was a bit rusty at talking at all, and found that her own company was lacking, so she began to talk to the garments she fixed as if they were real people. And that is how she spent her days. Talking to the garments she fixed, and staying mostly secluded in her small workspace. Mr. Henrik, the owner of the store, had brought on new help to handle the customers. Which was all well and good for Rose, who never talked much to them anyways as they were flighty girls.
Rose's nights were spent reading letters from her sisters, cleaning the house, and waiting for her mum to come home before ultimately falling asleep in bed only to repeat the whole thing over again the next day.
Three months continued on like this.
"Rose, I'm goin' home." Lynda, a sweet girl, spoke up from the main room.
"Yes, alright, have a good night." Rose said back to her, listening as the door closed behind the young girl. "I will just fix these last couple shirts and will go home myself." Though Rose was really in no hurry, so once she fixed three shirts, she went on to a pair of pants, a couple socks, and a rather lovely yellow dress.
Rose Tyler was undeniably bored with her lot in life. She never complained, and she was even rather kind of Mickey Smith around the corner, who seemed to want to court her. He also had the unfortunate luck of being the middle child of three, though he had an elder and younger brother instead of sisters. That made him not particularly bright or clever or handsome, but he was kind, and he walked her home whenever she worked into the night, so what more did she have to ask for?
"I don't think that dress has the answers you're lookin' for." A gruff voice said from the doorway leading from the main room into her work space. Rose was startled so badly she nearly stuck her needle through her palm as she spun around to the intruder.
He was a large man, his body taking up nearly the entirety of the frame, and her heart gave a quick double beat in admission to how large he really was. Mickey Smith was scarcely taller than her. His hair was shorn close to his scalp, in the popular military cut. His face was full of big features, like his nose and ears, along with large eyes the color of ice.
"You shouldn't go sneaking around on people!" Rose didn't know where the admonishing tone came from, she had hardly raised her voice in the 19 years she had been alive, but she brushed it off as a side-effect of being scared so badly. She knew she should apologize, he didn't have the dress of a military man, but he might be one, and besides that, he would be a customer, and rudeness would not be tolerated.
"I said hello, out there, but no one answered, and then I heard your voice comin' from in here." The man grinned, crossing his impressive arms over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe. He didn't seem put off by her attitude, actually it seemed quite the opposite. He seemed amused by her rudeness. Rose couldn't help but wonder what exactly she had said when she thought herself alone. "That Rickey sounds like an idiot if you ask me."
"It's Mickey," Rose corrected automatically before realizing her folley. "And he's not an idiot, it's not his fault he is the middle child." The man grinned once more, his entire countenance lighting up, turning him from a frightening figure into one that was, well- quite intriguing.
"What does being a middle child have to do with anything?" He asked, and Rose was now certain that his accent was none that she had heard before. Her heart gave another double beat, but this time in excitement.
"Middle children of three are always meant to live a life of mediocrity, it is not there fault." Rose defended, but the man snorted in a rather rude way.
"Sounds like bollocks to me." Rose had to fight harder than she would have liked against a smile at that. "What it sounds like was an ancient excuse to dote on the youngest and eldest, an excuse for everyone to conform to a certain standard of living even before they can properly walk. Sounds like an excuse to stay in a dingy old room, never to see the world, and when you're too old to actually do anything say, it was because I was a middle child. Not because you were too scared to take a chance." Even though he stood across the room, he loomed over her.
"Sounds to me like you're the youngest." Rose sniped back, surprising a laugh out of the man. "What are you even doing here?" She had no idea where this brashness was coming from, she had never spoken a word out of turn her entire life, but then again, with her two sisters around, she never had to speak much for herself.
"I've got a coat that needs mendin', that is what you do isn't it? I heard you're the best in several towns. That people give you old and torn things, and you give it back to them better than when it was new." Rose didn't know why it sounded like he was challenging her, she hardly knew the man, didn't even know his name, but she felt like it was a challenge. She might not be clever or funny or beautiful, but she could mend anything.
"Is that what they say then?" Rose raised an eyebrow then gave a pointed look to the jacket folded over his arm. "Well if they say it, then it must be true. Give it over." He grinned, a flash of brilliance that made Rose's own lips want to return the sentiment, but there was also something hard about him. Hard and cold, but burning. Like inside he was ice and fire, but Rose shook that thought off with a mental shrug. She was just to do the mending, not analyze the customer.
The coat was made of soft leather, the likes she had never felt before. It was warm beneath her fingers, still retaining the heat from the man who had just handed it over like it was something precious, but there was still that infuriating challenging look in his eyes. Rose ran her fingers along the tear on the inside, it looked like it had gotten caught on something.
"If you come back-" Rose stared at the empty space the strange man had just occupied a moment before. She clutched the jacket to her chest and strode quickly out of the small, dim work room and stared around the empty shop.
Rose moved over to the door, noting that the 'closed' sign was flipped. Her fingers brushed against the doorknob. It was locked from the inside, and she was alone in the small shop.