Title: For the want of a Jacket
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Swearing and explicit sex
Genre: Smut with a bit of a plot and a bit of heart, Cliché
Summary: "We're married!...But we can't be married!...It's a conundrum!"
Chapter 1
"Why am I banged up this time?"
Rose fidgeted and fought the urge to scratch at the incessant irritation of the yellow one-piece, jumpsuit that seemed to be woven from a Hessian like material, much more uncomfortable even than the jaggy rim of her old sun hat.
The Doctor smiled in response to her 'Devil may care attitude' and her obvious trust that this was nothing more than a passing inconvenience in the quirky, topsy-turvy world of Time travel.
"Apparently we're married!" A faint blush blossomed under his averted eye lids.
"What? Again?" Rose laughed.
"Ah well, alien planet, alien customs, social mores can be misconstrued and misinterpreted as marital affection. Seven times now, right? Well they do say practise makes perfect."
"And I'm incarcerated for what exactly? Poor taste?" The tip of her tongue traced an imaginary flavour from her pouting lips.
"Oi!" he squeaked then straightened his shoulders in a defensive and manly gesture.
"They think you're too old for me or are they worried that our kids would be bullied for peroxide hedgehog hair or go on fire for the amount of product combined with their twin suns?"
"Hedgehog? Don't dis the hair, Rose. This hair has got us out of a lot of scraps."
"Well it does almost look sentient. I've heard of guys thinking with their dicks but not dead hair follicles."
"Hey just be thankful your not with number six. Now that was a bad hair life."
A protective hand tweaked a few errant spikes and Rose couldn't help imagining the Doctor dressed as a 'T-bird' and slipping a comb from one of his, bigger on the inside, pockets. How he ever found anything was beyond her.
"Well, I thought after Nine, you might have no hair!"
"Skinhead does not go with my fine, athletic features and sleek fashion sense and between you and me I've always regenerated with a rather lumpy cranium."
"You've just been dropped on her head one too many times." she quipped.
"Oh, shut it. I've only got ten minutes visiting time and you don't want to know what I had to do just to get that."
Rose grimaced and calmed her girlish giggles into a sophisticated, down to business façade.
"Ok, so way am I in here."
Rose spun neatly in the spot and indicated the claustrophobic six by six foot dank, three sided box before facing the fourth wall of black metallic bars once again.
"Oh didn't I say? We're married."
"And?" This man was exasperating if normally ridiculously intelligent.
"We can't be married." He surmised.
"Ok…"
"Conundrum isn't it? You see marriage on Fourtax is outlawed. Apparently years ago the King and Queen of this province had a falling out. Well he came home from hunting to find her in bed with the pastry chief. Kind of like your human Hispanic pool boy sitcom scenario. Mr. Rumpy Pumpy…"
"Excuse me?"
"Well I don't know his name. Anyway he was from a neighbouring county and the King was so incensed by his wife's betrayal that he summoned the army and followed the fleeing man back to his own environs for some vigilantly justice. However as soon as the cuckold crossed the city limits the King had no jurisdiction, like wild west bandits fleeing to Mexico and so needed his army for persuasion.
Mounting an offensive while his emotional state still rested on the outrage of the chef mounting his wife cost the lives of three hundred men and the King himself on foreign soil. This lead to a fierce counter attack and civil war. Finally the heads of each state talked out their differences and realised that it was a woman's humiliation and the assumption of monogamy and ownership that caused so much bloodshed.
From that day on, marriage was abolished so that no one would again come to blows due to the wiles of a weak and inferior sex. If there was no claim on the woman then there could be no deceit or embarrassment." The Doctor puffed out his cheeks in exaggerated exhalation.
"But on earth, until recently anyway, it brought shame and disgrace to be up the duff unless you were married so what about kids, paternal rights and so forth?"
"Not here. It's free sex here, no ties or commitments just the continuation of the race through anonymous procreation and the female of the species is still regarded as the lesser mate and distrusted like your serpentine apple myth so she's responsible for child care, unless the child is male in which case they cut the apron strings pretty quickly and enrol them in a kind of boarding school."
"Myth?"
"What?" he shrugged.
"A talking snake and tree of omniscient knowledge, please?"
With only ten minutes, Rose was not going to dwell on the Doctor's condescension even though she loved a good argument.
"Ok, so why do they think we're married?"
"You were wearing my jacket. It's a sign of ownership, a claim, if you will."
"So because I was cold, I'm now freezing and behind bars."
"Oh don't worry you won't be here for long."
"Thank goodness." She sighed and held herself tighter.
"They'll transport you to a workers colony for manual labour in the morning."
"What?" The Doctor was unreasonably grateful there were thick metal bars between him and his jeopardy friendly companion as her hand reflexively flexed and tautened into an oncoming, Jackie Tyler slap.
"Hmmm, yes. You're an undesirable element. Can't have you going around riling up the woman folk. The sentence is life without parole, out of sight, out of mind and trouble stirring."
"How come it's only the woman?"
"Don't be silly, Rose."
"Two minutes." A gruff yet petite, as all the natives were, blue myelin-ed jailor growled out.
"What do we do?" Rose's confidence was wavering by the minute and she'd long since succumbed to scratching the itch round her neckline and arms.
"Do?" a confused quirked eyebrow responded.
"Doctor?"
"Oh yes, do. Well I tried to explain that we're not from these parts and were unaware of their customs and of course insisted that we were most definitely not married."
"Did that work?"
The Doctor seemed strangely distracted as he picked at an errant thread of blue from a pinstriped sleeve.
"Weeellll. Yes and no. They showed some understanding for our foreign ignorance but they want proof before they drop the charges."
Rose knew that she didn't want to ask and the question came out clipped and impatient.
"What kind of proof?"
"An experiment in social interaction. The suspected wife, you, gets friendly with one of the locals in one of the many adult bars and the authorities observe the suspected husband's, me, my reaction to test for jealousy or anger."
"How friendly?"
"Time." A bored looking official shuffled the Doctor out of the cell area by the waist as that was all they could reach and Rose was left, mouth aghast to question the empty stale and strange smelling air.
