He's forever falling, through logic and reason and insanity and reality, and he can't discern good from bad or from anything at all. He's so numb but feels so alive and so trapped at the same time. Then something goes wrong, something's malfunctioning, and this prison of paradise is every so slowly gradually draining away.
It's only a matter of time now.
0000
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh fucking shit…
Generally, Rose Tyler's thought process is a bit more substantial, but at the moment she's on the run from some distant cousin of an Absorbaloff and can't be bothered to keep her inner monologue child-friendly or pertaining to any form of consequence.
Rather, the only thing she's thinking about is getting the hell away from the nefarious alien that's bent on absorbing all the blondes of London to become the latest reincarnation of Shirley Temple.
But, because someone in this universe bloody hates her, she's forced to stop, her little runaway interrupted by a bar fight – a bloody bar fight. That's right, Earth's blondes are in peril and the universe could implode at any minute, and she gets caught in the middle of some skirmish between two ignorant, drunken oafs that will by next morning have no memory of the night before.
Absently, Rose thinks: been there, done that. But then she's almost smiling, because she can't help but be a bit proud of herself. Three years ago, she was getting smashed every other night with the scum of London, and now's she's recovering from a platonic relationship with a time traveling alien with commitment issues while serving as both defender and diplomat of the world at an institute dealing with extraterrestrial beings – doing the impossible, Pete calls it.
Doing the impossible sounded awfully like going completely bonkers, but Rose supposes they might be the same thing anyways.
However, this train of though is quickly squashed as the universe proves yet again that it hates her. Of all the innocent bystanders watching a bar fight, Rose is the one that gets knocked down as one bloke throws the other smack into her.
"Oof," Rose grunts, "Concrete is hard." She opens her eyes, and is suddenly face-to-face with the most handsome man she's ever seen.
"Oh!" he exclaims, "Oh! Oh, oh, oh. Today's my lucky day. After all, it's not every day you land right on top of some gorgeous blonde. Well, not for me it isn't. Maybe for some blokes that are on top of another blonde every other night – not me, I can assure you. I'm very monogamous when it comes to relationships and women and I should've shut my gob about two sentences back if I wanted to have any chance with you at all, right?"
"Do me a favor: get the hell off me and buy me a drink first before you start planning our wedding, mate."
He is up and off her so fast if she'd blinked she would have missed it. His eagerness is surprisingly refreshing, and she can't keep the nostalgic smile off of her face as she too stands. Turning, she studies the other man. Tall. Beefy. Rather over-confident. He's the sort of person whose only true weapon is also his greatest flaw. While brute force may be useful in smashing the living daylights of some guy half the size of yourself, it isn't so valuable when dealing with a little Torchwood style kickboxing.
The poor sod is on his ass within five minutes, and Rose tells herself she only did it to clear the sidewalk so she could continue on her way to Torchwood Tower. After all, there is no way she could possibly fancy and want to defend that idiot of a flirt that promised her monogamy two seconds after they first met whose name is Sam Hallet and whose right hand has her cell phone number scrawled on in the sharpie she keeps in her purse.
0000
Mel, of course, has trouble deciding whether to scorn or gush over this latest piece of office gossip.
"You met at a bar?" she questions incredulously, the twang of her accent grating on Rose's ears. She fixes the blonde with a disbelieving look, lips pursed in a tiny pout. Rose notices the tiny dash of her gaze behind and to the left of Rose. Rose happens to recall a certain attractive language rep's desk to be there, and she almost smiles. Kirk Jones and Melanie Peladeau have been pounding this will-they won't-they relationship into the ground for the last two months. It's downright sickening, and Melanie reminds Rose of Shireen and her in year seven – pouting, fluttering eyelashes, and denying all attraction towards any male within hearing.
"Pouting," Mel once said, "Is the perfect way to get men to look at you. Real pouting, though. And you have to be good at it. Most girls look like emo chipmunks when they try to pout." Rose, at the time, wondered how many hours of thought went into this philosophy.
"We met next to a bar," she corrects, resisting the urge to glance down to her shoes. Breaking eye contact, Rose knows, is a dead giveaway of emotion.
Mel somehow manages to snort delicately. "Oh yeah, 'cause that's so different. Rose, sweetie, I think you're delusional."
"Great. See, Mel, you're the type of friend every little girl dreams of. Supportive, sensitive, and pretty too!"
She flips her strawberry-blonde hair over one shoulder while sweeping her heavily mascara-ed eyelashes. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, sweetie. But enough of that. Was he cute? C'mon, what was he like?"
Rose smirks but yet decides to humor the nosy raccoon-eyed flirt. She tells Mel that he's absolutely gorgeous – all rusty blonde hair and eyes like hazelnuts.
"Hazelnuts? Don't tell me you've been thinking about him, Rose. You met at a bar!" Melanie's left brow quirks all-knowingly.
She wants to say "Oh, yeah? Well, I met my last boyfriend during an alien invasion!" but doesn't think it would go over well. Mel, despite working for Torchwood – lives by a very close-minded set of rules. Unlike Jack, Rose remembers, that one would jump anything with a pulse.
Instead, Rose Tyler, defender and diplomat of the Earth, alumni TARDIS traveler, and baker extraordinaire retorts: "Shut up."
Her raccoon companion smiles. "Aw, don't pout darling. You're starting to look like one of those chipmunks. And really, I think it's adorable. Sort of like one of those romantic comedies I used to watch when I was fourteen."
Rose is not amused. "Yup, that's me – Bridget Jones for ya. All I need to do now is cook up some blue soup and take up binge drinking."
0000
She's in conference with the ambassador of Floun'n when a tinny version of Pokerface explodes from her purse. Rose flushes as she pulls out the cell phone, mumbling apologies. "Very sorry, Ambassador Felbourne." She's just about to ignore the call when Melanie notices the caller I.D.
"No way, Rose. Answer it. You don't mind, do you, Ambassador Felbourne?" Melanie chirps, flashing a hundred-watt smile.
"Who is it?" asks the ambassador. "Is it a boy? Answer it then."
Rose looks from Melanie to Ambassador Felbourne to Melanie and then back to her phone. She lets out a tiny nervous laugh, weakly smiles, and excuses herself.
The ambassador turns to her body guard. "I do adore young love," she informs him. "Have you seen Bridget Jones' Diary? It's one of my adored favorites. Goes well with chocolate – bittersweet chocolate, mind you. Milk chocolate is absolutely horrid with Hugh Grant. Milk chocolate is more of a Colin Firth sort of thing."
"Yes, Ambassador," grunts the guard.
0000
"Hello?"
Sam Hallet smiles. All day he's been trying to remember exactly how her voice sounded. Honey, he decides, and syrup.
"Yeah, this is Sam, uh, Sam Hallet. We met—" He stops himself before going any further. He decides that a stuttering reminder that they met a bar while he was more than a little tipsy wasn't the best way to secure a date.
"Yeah? Oh. Yes, yes I remember you. Um –" Sam strains his ears to hear the voices in the background. Something about Brad Pitt and truffles.
"Erm, am I interrupting something?" He inquires, nervous. He hears some crashing and someone shouting about an Ambassador.
"Ah, no." She sounds out of breath. "Everything's—" A rather alarming sort of buzzing sounds – almost like a gunshot.
"Rose? Was that--"
"Everything's fine! Just give me a sec, 'kay?" Sam nods, then remember she can't see him.
After a while of dead silence, Sam decides to count. He's on twenty-two when he hears Rose's voice again.
"Hello? Sam?"
He grins involuntarily, ignoring the strange look his co-worker gives him as he pass by to his cubicle.
"Yes, I'm here."
"Fantastic." He can hear the grin in her voice. "So I was thinking about Thursday for dinner at the place between the pizza place and the salon on the 34th?"
"Thursday? Yes, Thursday. Thursday is great. Fantastic. Marvelous. Brilliant. Molto Bene," he quips, smirking to himself.
There is silence on the other end. He wonder's if he's offended her in some way.
"I'm sorry, what'd you say?"
Aw, shit. Sam curses.
"Molto Bene. Means 'very good,' in um, Italian?"
"Right. Yes, I knew that," Rose says, "It's just…"
There's another beat of silence.
"I'm sorry, I have this Absorbaloff that's trying to bite off an ambassador's arm. See you Thursday? Bye!"
There's a second, a slow swell of possibility before Sam convinces himself he's gone insane and that there's no way Rose fought off…whatever she said…in her spare time.
Right?