Never Quite Normal

By: Jessa L'Rynn & Olfactory Ventriloquism

This work is a collaborative effort. If it had been just me, this story wouldn't be right at all, so big round of applause for my co-author, Olfactory Ventriloquism. -Jessa

Disclaimer: We don't own Doctor Who. We have abducted him and are trying to get him to sign himself over, but so far we're still only getting is jelly babies. We'll let you know.

Please note: This fic carries an M rating for a lot of very good reasons.

Chapter 2

Rose looked around with amused fascination at the bachelor's clutter of Joshua's flat. "Cream?" he called from the little kitchen, and she grinned.

"Ta," she agreed.

"Funny word, that," he said as he brought in two mugs.

"Looks like you'd know," she said blandly, moving the large pile of thesaurus, dictionary, and lap top around on the coffee table to put her feet up. She picked up his notebook and stared at it blankly for a moment. "What language is this?" she asked.

He grinned, that gorgeous smile that lit up his blue eyes like starlight. "My handwriting," he said. "Got the world's worst penmanship, me," he added and sat down next to her. "Look it up, there in the dictionary, under 'illegible' - it says 'see handwriting of Joshua Stewart.'"

Rose grinned back. "Sure you're not a doctor?" she asked cheerfully and sipped at the tea. God, it was perfect, better than her mum's, which was saying something.

He frowned at her for a moment in some strange sort of confusion, then picked up his mug and sipped at it. "I am, actually," he admitted, gesturing at the wall across the flat. "PhDs in literature and linguistics. Nothing major."

"Wow, really? How old are you, Joshua?"

It took him several minutes and a bracing gulp from his mug to decide to answer that, apparently. "Forty. And you're not setting me up with your mum, so don't even think it."

"Eeew," she said, and shivered. "God, no. You're about her same age, actually, but... just, eew." She took rather a large swallow of the tea, thinking she might want to wash that idea away altogether.

"Oh, thank God," he said, laughing, and sounding thoroughly relieved. "I thought that's what you were after - and Jackie Tyler is just not my type."

She thought about asking what his type was, but was too nervous to phrase the question. She resorted to joking instead. "God, you're thick," she said with a smile. "Mickey said he got in an argument with you?"

"Exactly, he argued with me. Dunno what you see in Rickey the Idiot, anyway."

"Dunno why you call him Rickey," she replied, setting her now empty mug down with a sigh of real pleasure.

He shrugged. "It suits him."

"S'funny," she said. "'Cuz his name is Michael Richard. So you could call him Mickey or Rickey, but we've always called him Mickey. As to what I see in him... well, we were kids together is all. I s'pose he'd be ok, but he's not what I really want." She sighed as he overlooked that and jumped up to remove their tea things back to the kitchen. She was beginning to think she was going to have to knock him over the head.

Rose had known for a long time that she preferred older blokes, but it wasn't 'til Joshua had dealt with the Jimmy Stone problem so effectively that she realized how much older she preferred them. Jimmy'd been 25 when they started going out. Rose, at an impressionable (stupid) seventeen had thought it was brilliant, dropped out of school to move in with him and everything. She turned eighteen just last week, but she'd already set her heart on a new bloke, the one who was her knight in - well - leather armor.

He was never anywhere without that jacket, after all, so you might as well call it his armor. The jacket and the severe haircut had suggested a life as a soldier, but at a guess, that was probably what he didn't want to think about.

She got up and meandered around aimlessly, taking a look at the degrees on the wall, the telly, the two photos in their frames on a shelf above it. One was of Joshua with a couple who looked to be in their sixties, the other also of him with a couple of blokes, all three of them laughing.

She smiled. "My God, its so beautiful, when the boy smiles," she sang softly.

Joshua came up behind her, towering over her, but friendly, a tentative smile on his fascinating face. "D'you like chocolate?" he asked kindly.

"Girl," she said with a flippant wave.

"Ah yes, human females always like chocolate." That sounded so strange and yet so right coming out of his mouth like that. "Aunt Doris baked me a chocolate cake. Want some?"

She grinned up at him. "Yes, please," she requested.

"Fantastic," he said and loped off to fetch cake.

She plunked back down on the sofa and picked up the notebook. Concentrating, she managed to, very slowly, make some sense of his handwriting. She was reading, apparently, a lullaby.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" she ventured when he returned with the cake.

"I guess," he agreed. "Don't promise to answer, though."

"I haven't seen you sober before. How come?"

He snorted. "Thought I had a better chance to figure out what you were about if I was sober. Doesn't seem to be helping, actually." He shrugged. "Still, can always get drunk again, I s'pose. But John's coming over later, and I'd like to keep him guessing."

She forked a bit of cake into her mouth, careful not to drop crumbs onto the book in her lap. "John's one of your mates?"

"Yeah, you met him, he and Harry both came down the pub with me week before last."

"Oh, right. He's the built one."

Joshua laughed. "So he's built, is he?"

She grinned at him. "Yeah, and Harry's the pretty one. Never seen a bloke pay that much attention to his hair."

"Well, I don't anyway," he agreed, running his free hand up through his dark, close cropped hair. "So which one am I?"

She blushed and nibbled at the cake, taking her time, trying to figure out how to explain without risking him chasing her out of his flat. Finally, when she couldn't stand another minute of those deep, burning eyes smoldering into her, she turned and smiled at him softly. "You, Joshua, are dead sexy."

He blinked, obviously startled. "Me?" he demanded. "But..."

"No, seriously, mate. It's when you smile." She sighed. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna hit on you or anything." Much, she didn't add.

He shook his head, astounded. "Don't think anyone's called me sexy before," he offered tentatively.

She smiled and finished her cake. "Just haven't had the nerve s'all, I'm sure."

He just sat there, looking quite as blank as if she had given in to her premonition and walloped him a good one, so she went back to the notebook and read it over. After a few minutes, she had the rhythm of the poem and a snatch of music that would suit it floated into her head. So she hummed it while Joshua cleaned away the plates again and then meandered around his own living room, looking dazed and baffled.

When she was sure she had the sound she wanted, she sang the little verse aloud, very softly. Yeah, that was a lullaby. And pretty with the right words.

He rounded on her, eyes wide with disbelief. "What... where..." He shook his head. "That tune, how'd you come up with it?"

"Dunno," she said. "Just suited."

"It does," he agreed. "I was about to bin that one, but... with the tune..."

She shrugged while he disappeared into another part of the flat. She thought it might be his bedroom, as the door was closed all the time except when he first went inside.

He came back a few minutes later with a pencil and some paper he was already jotting marks on. "All right," he said, "sing it through."

"What, seriously?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind."

"No, I don't mind." She was shaking, she realized. He was bouncing with excitement and his hand was going over the paper at a mile a minute, but he still found time to watch her with those painfully vivid eyes. Drawing a deep breath, she started to sing.

"Fantastic," he breathed when she was finished, and those eyes lit on her, glowing, brilliant, so alive. He jotted some few more notes or words or something and then held the paper out to her.

She took it and stared at it in bald shock. There in her hand was the freshly minted sheet music to the song she had just sung. Across the top in a careful, sprawling script, was written, "Susan's Lullaby." Underneath in neat block letters, he had written "Music by Rose Tyler, Lyrics by Joshua Stewart."

She grinned, dizzy with sheer delight and shock. "Oh, wow," she breathed. "Just... wow."

"Fantastic?" he asked softly.

"Oh, God yes," she agreed and, impulsively, threw her arms around him.

He leaned into her hug, put his arms around her for the briefest moment before he drew away. "Thank you," he said softly, but his eyes now looked so distant and hurt.

"I... sure." She put a hand on his arm. "Joshua?"

"I need a drink," he said and turned toward the kitchen again. "You want anything?"

"No, I... I should probably go, since you're expecting friends, I guess..."

He swore colorfully and fluently. Rose had hardly ever heard the like on the Powell Estates where she grew up before. One of her mum's boyfriends had sworn like that, but he was a sailor. Of course, Joshua was obviously a soldier, so it made sense. "What?" she said.

"Don't have time to get properly shit-faced if John's coming over. Days like this, I wish I had a time machine."

"Yeah... no," she said, suddenly thoroughly annoyed. "You want a time machine, just to go back and get drunk?"

He came out of the kitchen and folded his arms across his chest, looking down at her sternly, the blue eyes blazing in his glowering face. "S'that a problem?"

"Not really," she said, "since you haven't got one." She sighed. "Thanks for taking time with me, Joshua. I'll see you later. Down the pub, probably. If you even remember my name."

And on that note, she turned and let herself out, feeling those eyes burning into her even after she had closed the door of his flat between them. She walked to the end of the hall, down the stairs and out the front door before she leaned up against the wall, shaking.

She knew she had no right to berate him, no claim to him of any kind. But it was annoying as hell, really. She would have liked to spend some time with him, get to know the real him when he was doing something other than drowning himself, and really, she'd told him what she wanted last night when she sang to him. If he couldn't figure it out, if he couldn't even stay sober long enough to try to figure it out, what was she supposed to do? Wait 'til he was completely pissed and then jump him? That'd never work... well, it would probably work, but it would never get her what she really wanted, which was behind those eyes, behind that smile, to find out why that heart was broken so badly. She couldn't help it. Her friends told her all her life that she spent too much time picking up strays, but all she really wanted was to help.

The hell with it, Rose thought, pulling out her mobile. He was old enough to be her father and he didn't need her or want her in any way. Besides, there was always Mickey.

Stupid, stubborn, human child. Joshua muttered angrily to himself and shoved the beer into the back of the ice box. He dragged out the milk instead, sniffed at it, and sighed. His milk never used to go off, he remembered that vaguely.

Fuck it. Fuck London, fuck sobriety, and fuck her, the stupid little bleach-blonde ape. Who did she think she was, anyway? If she'd seen half the shit he had, she'd never come out of her stupid little Council flat again. She'd stay with her psychopathic mummy, cuddle up to Rickey the Idiot, and live off beans on toast for the rest of her life.

He pulled out a beer, popped the tab, and chugged it. Or tried to. No more than a mouth full, and he spit it out in complete revulsion.

Fantastic, he thought sarcastically as he poured it down the drain. The little brat was getting into his head.

They jogged along the pavement, pace steady and strong, hearts accelerated, breath short and quick. John was chattering away, complaining, as usual, that Joshua never took off his jacket.

"Well, you gotta admit it's better than that scarf," Joshua reminded him, checking his footing as they turned away from the sidewalk and into the little park area.

"You remember that?" John asked, sounded winded and surprised.

Joshua never had trouble with his breathing, but John was older, so he could be forgiven, although he doubted Uncle Alistair would be particularly impressed. Hell, Uncle Alistair could still run circles around John and Harry both. Or over them, if he felt the need.

"How could I forget? That was stupid, I could have hung myself. C'mon, let's run through the kids area, get our hearts really pumping - well, heart in your case."

"You know, you never used to bandy that about."

"What difference does it make?" Joshua asked. "Harry can tell you. I'm a chimera. Means I'm technically two people."

"You have absolutely no idea how little trouble I have believing that," said John, grimly, and turned to follow him. "Nice to see you in a good mood," he added.

"Well, I blew something up this morning and I feel better now."

"Blew something up... God, D... Joshua, the Brigadier asked you not to do that."

"He asked me not to get caught, John, that's different. Besides, I had all that beer, and I thought I'd get rid of it. One of the cans flew 90 feet. Pretty impressive."

"You're still mad, you know that?"

"All my life."

"Don't I know it," John agreed.

They were silent for some moments and then they came out into the little clearing where the swings and other kids' stuff were. Joshua blinked in some surprise to see Rose there, again, with Rickey the Idiot. He was chattering away at her, obviously, but she looked bored out of her skull. She had even walked away from him, but she hadn't noticed the two of them, yet, as she leaned up against the merry-go-round, rocking back and forth.

He could never have said, if anyone asked him, why he did it. It just felt right, extremely right, perfect. He ran up beside her, grinning like an idiot, and caught her eyes.

She blinked at him in surprise and shock, and he caught her hand, shifted his around it, just so, and said one word, just one. "Run!"

She laughed a merry, high pitched twinkle, and took off after him, her hand still caught tight in his. By the time they'd crossed the path, she was level with him, and he caught her face, beaming, out of the corner of his eye.

It occurred to him that he hadn't seen anything quite so beautiful in ages.