Inspired by jessi-girl9's request for more book store AUs on timepetalsprompts blog.
The name of the bookstore was suggested by Gallifreyireland.
Her favourite chippy had been turned into a bookstore overnight.
Okay, not overnight exactly, but quickly enough that there had been no warning signs.
On top of everything going pear-shaped these days, no one had thought to inform her the most delicious chips this side of the Thames would be replaced by stupid old books.
Even the store front had changed, painted a royal blue, and yet she'd seen no painters at work over the last weeks.
You'd think it had just materialized there.
"The turn of the Earth" claimed hand-painted gold letters above the door. Bit pompous, she reckoned.
Rose leaned against the glass door to peer inside, holding her hands around her eyes. She almost fell flat on her face when the door opened.
"You coming in or not?" said a man in a rough northern voice.
"Uh? Oh, no, sorry."
She walked away, but a few steps later she heard: "By the way, did I mention it's two for one today?"
She could never resist a bargain, she was Jackie's child after all.
The inside of the building had changed so much, it was like stepping through some magic portal to another place. It seemed twice as big as the chippy had been with vaulted ceilings she'd never noticed before.
Like a peacock displays its feathers, the shop wore its books with pride. Pages were fanned out to expose beautiful illustrations, leather covers shined as if polished and antiques were showcased in glass cabinets. Bookcases stood tall, reaching all the way to the ceiling. The building looked new and ancient all at one. Chaotic yet harmonious. A shiny laptop opened next to a typewriter, chandeliers and neon lights, and dust motes like glitter in the streaming light.
The owner, on the other hand, looked like any regular bloke. He was smiling, though, bright and wide, contagiously. He watched her taking it all in, with arms crossed and feet planted firmly apart— master of his domain. She was his first customer, she realized.
"If it's a new shop how comes it looks so old?" Rose asked.
"Oi! S'not old, it's… classic."
She chuckled and ran her hand over the varnished wood of the shelf. The stale smell of paper and ink had already overpowered the one of fried food.
"What d'you do with all the potatoes and fish?"
"Turned them into books," he said seriously. "Got a machine out back, special for that."
Not a smile betrayed his joke. He was still observing her as though he was picky with clients.
"Oh, is that right? I've got a machine that turns apples into socks."
That earned her a smirk.
"Show me your books, then."
"Right this way."
She sauntered alongside him as he guided her through meandering rows of books.
The classification system was eccentric. There was a logic to it, if not the one clients might expect.
Authors who had known each other met again on the shelves: Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, the Fitzgeralds with Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
It was endearing, this effort to reunite them in a sort of literary afterlife.
Jack Kerouac's On the Road could be found with USA travel guides, and books on nuclear power with Spider-Man comics. Pride and Prejudice with Bridget Jones' Diary. Treasure Island, The Wizard of Oz and A Christmas Carol were next to one another. "All Muppets films," he explained. Alice in Wonderland was tucked between a DIY hats manual and a Tea Party album. Bright yellow and deep blue books surrounded Van Gogh biographies. The entire Sherlock Holmes collection stood amongst issues of Pipe Smoker Quarterly.
To hell with the Dewey decimal system.
He didn't want clients to find what they were looking for, he wanted them to discover something new.
A phone rang— a proper old-fashioned ring, what else— and the owner left her to answer.
Rose trailed her fingers along the book spines, feeling the ridges and creases of old volumes, the warmth of worn-out paper, and gliding over the cool, smooth covers of newer ones.
She pulled one out at random. Whip it, right next to a Devo album and a roller derby fashion magazine. She opened it to read the first sentence, and by the time the man came back, she was sitting on the floor, already on the second chapter.
"Sorry." She started getting up.
"No worries, keep on reading. I'm the Doctor, by the way."
"Rose."
"Enjoy your book, Rose."
He smiled and stepped over her legs. And she kept on reading while the Doctor worked beside her in silence. Music played faintly in the background, something pop punk that was the perfect soundtrack to the words on the page. She let it all carry her away. She took a break from this world.
Every once in a while, she'd glance the Doctor's way and find him contemplating a shelf with a serious frown, then he'd move a book one spot to the left or discard it altogether over his shoulder. Sometimes, he'd take off and come back with a single item to place on the shelf, and he'd look at the result with something like beatific satisfaction.
She had to correct her former assessment: he was no ordinary bloke.
"Closing time," he announced much to Rose's surprise.
That's when she noticed the numbness in her bum from sitting on the hardwood floor all afternoon. She stretched her legs and neck. Her body might be ready to move, but she wasn't ready to let go of the story she was reading. Looking at the price tag at the back, she sighed. This one was new, and a bit pricier than she could afford right now.
"You can come back tomorrow," he told her.
"Yeah?"
"Of course."
At 9am on the dot, she stood in front of the bookshop.
It wasn't opened yet.
She pulled up her hood and bunched her sleeves in her fists to ward off the autumn chill, and leaned against the wall, waiting for the Doctor.
All night, she had thought about the novel and couldn't wait to know what would happen next to Bliss Cavendar. Hopefully, her experience with a boyfriend in a rock band would go better than Rose's.
She would never have described herself as an avid reader, but she had been reading more and more over the last years. It probably had something to do with being out of school… and escaping her own boring life.
"You're late," Rose said with a teasing grin when the Doctor got out of his car. "It says 9am on the sign."
"It's my shop, it opens when I get here and not a minute later."
He unlocked the front door and chucked his leather coat on the counter. Rose found her spot and dived back in the book.
The next day, Rose bought a coffee cup on the way, to warm her fingers. The day after, she brought a thermos of tea and poured a cup for the Doctor too.
Whereas they had stayed in companionable silence over the previous days, each doing their own thing, Rose found herself distracted by him today. She hadn't been brought up to stand idly by while someone else did all the work. Especially cleaning. Especially when said person let her read his books for free. Without a word, she put her novel aside and took another rag from the bucket of soapy water.
"Teamwork, yeah?"
The Doctor's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he let her do it.
Something upbeat played over the stereo, giving an extra swing to her dusting.
"Ian Dury and the Blockheads," the Doctor informed her, "and it's not disco, it's new wave."
Her mobile vibrated in her pocket, she wiped her hand on her jeans before taking it. One look at the screen and she decided to ignore it. The Doctor noticed but didn't ask.
After a while, he stopped cleaning and tinkered with a pulley system he'd created to access the highest shelves. It looked like a cross between a hot air balloon and a swing
"How does that thing work?" she asked him.
His face broke into a grin.
"Want to try it?"
"It's for people?"
"Come on!" He patted the wooden seat.
Rose hopped on it and swung her feet with a giggle, half nerves, half joy. The Doctor pushed a button and Rose lurched two feet up. She yelped and grabbed the sides with white-knuckled fists. With every push on the button, wheels and gears squeaked, steam came out of a pipe, and she was carried higher.
"Fantastic! It works!"
"You weren't sure it would?!"
"I was 99% sure." He huffed. "Make that 90%... 80."
"Oh, my god! How do I get back down there?"
"Ah."
"Doctor!"
The bell above the door jingled.
"Don't go anywhere."
"Where would I go?" Rose shouted, but he'd already scampered off.
She avoided looking down (it wasn't that high, but she'd definitely break something were she to fall) by perusing the closest shelves. She smiled at the titles: Cloud Atlas, The Kite Runner, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Wuthering Heights...
She picked a novel called A long way down that turned out to be about four people who want to throw themselves off a building. It was actually quite funny and Rose's laughter scared a client who hadn't seen her perched up there.
"Rose, I'm coming to get you."
She looked up from her book and saw the Doctor carrying a tall ladder. He placed it against the wall, but it wasn't quite tall enough to reach her. Okay, now she was getting a little scared. The Doctor climbed all the way up and stood precariously on the last bar.
"Can you stand up?" he asked. "Here, put your hands on my shoulders. That's it."
She held on to him tightly as she stepped over the side of the crate.
"Now you need to come here."
"How?" she squeaked, staring at the gap between them.
"Hold on tight."
He grasped her waist and lifted her, making her scream. She clasped her arms around his neck and dug her fingernails in the wool of his jumper. Soon, she felt something solid under her foot, he'd placed her next to him on the ladder. She breathed out a sigh of relief but still didn't let go of the Doctor.
"Sorry. Are you all right?"
"Yeah," she mumbled against his shoulder.
He rubbed her back in broad circles, and Rose quickly recovered, but waited to tell him she was fine. He smelled like his books, only a bit muskier.
They made it back to the floor safely. They hugged once more, laughing this time.
"Maybe get a guinea pig," Rose said.
"I'll think about it. Blimey, is it two already? I've a delivery. D'you mind keeping an eye on the shop? Gimme a shout if anyone comes in."
"Sure."
Taking her role very seriously, Rose settled with her book by the front door. Not ten minutes later, a young woman walked in. Rose welcomed her. She smiled back at Rose, displaying an adorable gap between her front teeth.
"I'm looking for books on spiritualism, you know, seances and such," she asked with a Welsh accent.
No need to bother the Doctor for something like that.
"Right this way, miss."
As they walked through the rows of books, Rose chatted with the client thus distracting her from the fact that she had no idea where to find books on spiritualism. Gwyneth had ditched school to come here today. Apparently there was a long history of "the sight" in her family.
"I never really believed it, but I started getting these— these flashes when I look at someone. Anyway, I wanna know more."
She found books on spirits right after Life of Pi. Gwyneth browsed the selection and leafed through a few volumes, still chatting with Rose.
"Think this one's out of place," she said, holding The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens.
"I'm sure it's right where it's supposed to be," Rose replied.
Gwyneth read the blurb on the back and smiled. She would take this one too. When she was ready to pay, Rose fetched the Doctor.
"There's a client—" she stopped dead in her tracks: the Doctor was shirtless. He'd been moving delivery boxes around, and sweat was beading on his forehead. But more importantly, he was fit.
"You were saying?"
"Erm, ha, client."
Much to Rose's disappointment, he put his jumper back on. She followed him to the cash register.
She might have glanced at his bum.
Okay, more than glanced.
Fine, she ogled. Not just the bum, his whole frame, noticing the way the wool clung to his arms, draped over his shoulder-blades and hinted at the curve of his lower back.
And then back at his bum.
He glanced at her over his shoulder with an amused glint in his eyes, and she could only hope he didn't notice her blush.
Before leaving, Gwyneth turned and looked between the two of them, smiling.
"Lucky you," she said.
The Doctor and Rose exchanged a quizzical look. Rose shrugged it off and returned to her novel, but she could feel the Doctor's eyes linger on her.