7.
"old teenage hopes are alive at your door, left you with nothing but they want some more. oh, you're changing your heart. oh, you know who you are." 1234 by feist
The city sometimes seems to Rose to be like a half-written love letter, all good intentions and poorly-thought-out metaphors until finally the writer gives up in the middle of his sonnet and crumples the paper in frustration. The smoke and grime of the concrete buildings and metal machines are like semi-formed conceits, the drunken teenagers stumbling along the sidewalk like unnecessary semicolons. The Doctor told her once that almost everything could be divided into words, although sometimes people don't need or want to do that. Rose thinks perhaps that's what London is like.
She remembers one such romantic attempt made by Mickey back when he first had a crush on her. It was sweet, but almost tragic in a way she couldn't quite explain. She thinks maybe if he had read more examples of what to do it would have been better. She's struck with the thought that the Doctor would write a fantastic love letter, and for some reason the idea makes her blush.
She ponders this from behind the front window of Henrik's as she adjusts the mannequins' clothing. As she trades out one necklace for another on the plastic neck, she gazes idly at the street before her. The columns of the building across the way seem to be plain until Rose narrows her eyes and notices the flowery details running along the sides, miniature marble roses and ivy that run up to the topmost part of the colonnades. Unfortunately, in the same glance she can see a group of crows settling onto the top of the building, jerking their jet black wings and opening their sharp beaks to caw obnoxiously. In typical London fashion, for every good thing, there are a dozen bad.
She gently eases the leather boots off of the dummy's feet, setting them to the side to be replaced with red platform heels. Not really her style, but she shrugs it off.
"To each his own, I s'pose," she mutters to herself, buckling the shoes into place with a firm snap. She steps back to look over her handiwork, nodding to herself, satisfied with the end product.
Her attention is drawn from the mannequin back to the window again by a series of sharp knocks against the glass. She glances up to see the Doctor standing in the window, waving madly at her from the sidewalk. He points to the front door to signal that he's coming in, and he strolls over to enter the store.
"Hello, Rose!" he announces from the door, where a few of her coworkers look up to see the source of the noise, startled. He walks over to her, either not noticing or not acknowledging the stares he's receiving. Apparently no one in the history of Henrik's has ever seen a slightly manic man in a leather jacket greet one of the workers so excitedly.
"Hello to you too, Doctor," she replies, smiling up at him.
"I was jus' passing by, thought I'd see you in your natural environment."
"Oh, this place is anything but natural." She straightens up the first mannequin, moving onto the second. "My shift ends at three, 'f you want to get dinner or something."
"Sure! I was thinking we could go see the Impressionism exhibit at the Tate, and then we could get some food after."
"Sounds great. I'll see you at my flat then?"
"Absolutely." He grins at her once more before turning on his heel and bounding out of the shop. She half-laughs when he nearly runs into her manager before quickly sidestepping the short man and waving goodbye.
Rose smiles to herself, shaking her head as she goes back to fixing up the mannequin.
"Was that your new boyfriend then? He's a little old, don't you think?"
Rose looks up to see one of her coworkers in her section, pretending to refold sweaters as she looks at her with expectation written all over her face. "No, he's not my boyfriend. Why, did you want to steal him, too?"
Angie smirks, clicking her tongue. "Oh, Rose, I thought we'd got past that. And good on you for finding a guy who's not just interested in you for-" she pauses deliberately and pointedly runs her eyes over Rose's figure, "well. You know what I mean."
"Thanks for that, but I should be getting back, then," she grits out. Rose resists the urge to pull the other girl's hair or punch her in the face, and instead simply finishes up in the front and retreats to the back room as quickly as possible. She pretends not to notice the way her hands are shaking from suppressed rage.
She hides behind the supply boxes and eats her lunch in the quiet space while she reads more of Our Mutual Friend, which she has actually been able to get through okay, all things considered.
("But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good- every good- with equal force.")
She finds herself calming down bit by bit, lets the words lull her into something close to peace. She thinks about the idea one of her English teachers from school shared, that when a person gives you a book what they are really giving you is part of themselves, a piece of their soul that they think you might like. She hopes it's true.
The walk home is slow, the airplanes in the sky screaming overhead, the murder of crows on the building across the street beating their wings against the thinning air. She settles into a rhythmic pattern of movement, like a funeral walk, or perhaps a wedding march. She decides that she'll figure out which when she gets to the end.
She thinks to herself that to anyone passing by she would look angry or upset. Honestly, she doesn't know why it's still shaking her so much, years later. She focuses on clear, blue eyes smiling at her like she's an anomaly, but in the most fantastic way, and she straightens her spine.
She matters. He cares about her. She's okay.
She walks a little faster, her combat boots clacking on the sidewalks, the petals from a woman selling roses on the street littering the ground in place of cigarettes, the red on the sidewalk looking like the best part of a half-finished love letter.
He arrives at her flat at twenty past, because the Doctor has perfected the art of knowing exactly how long it will take her to walk home. She has changed into a casual dress that she got from work, something that Jack told her looked "absolutely fantastic," in an exaggerated Northern accent, but keeps her boots, deciding perhaps she'll try something new in terms of her style: the I-do-things-like-spend-a-weekday-afternoon-at-a-mu seum-and-this-is-how-I-dress-for-it-and-you? look that she's seen the more artsy crowd wear on occasion.
He simply looks over the difference of style, looks down at his usual leather jacket/jumper combination, and shrugs, holding out his elbow for her to take. She does, smirking up at him as if challenging him to say something, and then they're off.
The Doctor is a whole lot quieter looking at art than he is when looking at historical artifacts. At the British Museum he had swung through the exhibits cheerfully, remarking on his knowledge of everything they saw to impress Rose, Jack, and any and all passers-by. Now he becomes much more introspective, sometimes softly calling to Rose to come look at a piece, pulling her by her white wrists to stand where he does so she can get the exact right angle.
"Look at that," he whispers into her hair, as if raising his voice another decibel would disturb the very air they breathe. "Do you see it?"
He never needs to clarify, of course, what "it" is. She already knows.
At every piece by Van Gogh he stands in front of it so long there is a moment every single time where Rose wonders if he's had some kind of stroke. Every single time, though, that is the exact moment where he calls to her, his voice as gentle and rough as the paint on the canvas. He doesn't say anything at all on these occasions. Rose thinks that he wouldn't have to, even if she were someone else.
At the piece "Outskirts of Paris," Rose gazes at the painting longer than he does, which she would find strange but can't bring herself to question either way. A man stands still in the middle of a road, his face indiscernible, and three birds fly over his head though they are only just silhouettes against the pale painted sky. She thinks about how she always wanted to go to Paris, though she knows the city looks much different now than from when it was 1886. She thinks it would be wonderful to see it at either time.
They buy strawberries as an afternoon snack, Rose covertly sneaking them from her purse into her mouth while looking at the paintings, though her unnaturally red lips would be a dead giveaway for anyone looking for any wrongs she might be committing. The Doctor makes a game out of the secrecy, pretending like they are spies straight out of a Bond film, having them sit down at a bench from opposite sides of the room and exchanging the fruit as if it were money or advanced weaponry. The game is over when they get caught and are forced to throw the food away, but there is a twinkle in the Doctor's eye that says he doesn't much mind the loss.
His hand in hers is warm and large, holding her still with him as they step outside into the light of the red evening sun.
"What did you think of the book, then?" she asks, gesturing to the coffee table with the hand that isn't clutching her paper carton of Chinese. She sits on the floor, holding up her kung pao chicken carefully while attempting to balance her chopsticks with one hand. Eventually she gives up and simply reaches around the Doctor's foot to get a plastic fork.
He turns from his position across from her and looks back by the couch. "What book?"
"My favorite one, Daddy-Long-Legs. You were reading it, right?" She skewers one particularly difficult piece and bites into it triumphantly.
He laughs. "I haven't actually started it yet. It's still there, you can see it now."
She furrows her brow and gives him an admonishing glare. "Well, it may be a bit dull for you, but I like it. You should start it when you can." She looks behind him and glances at the table. Sure enough, the little book sits there still, though this time without the ash tray weighing it down.
She stands, walking idly over to the table, sprawling over the arm of the couch as she pick it up and flips through the pages. "What happened to your ash tray?" At his confused expression, she continues. "It was on top of the book. It was a really nice one, crystal and everything."
"Oh. That. I, uh. 'm trying to quit. Figured I might as well get rid of everything. Cold turkey, cancer sticks, smoking'll kill you, an' all that."
She smiles, holding the open book in front of her face to hide it.
"Oh, come off it, Rose, I know you're dying to say 'I told you so.'"
"Well. I did tell you so."
He laughs in response, pushing himself off the floor with a grunt to snatch the book away. "I'll get around to it. Promise." He places it carefully once more on the table, and pulls her by the hand to a standing position. "Come on. I have something to give you."
"Oh, no, this isn't the part where you reveal yourself to actually have been a serial murderer this whole time, is it? My mum would never let me hear the end of it. She would die too just so she could get the last word."
"If you want you can wait here where it's ever-so-slightly safer, and I'll just get it and bring it back here."
"That sounds good, yeah. Who knows what you're hiding. It could be bodies or earthworms or creepy stalker photography or worse."
"Like a coin collection?"
"Exactly."
He smirks, and retreats to the only other room in the flat, which she presumes to be his bedroom. She sits once more, pulling the book from table and skimming through it. The edition the Doctor has is really a very nice one, with large red roses blooming along the front cover that proclaims the title of the book proudly. Rose's is a simple paperback that she got once at her school's library and forgot to give back. She stills feels guilty about that sometimes, but then she forgets again, and so it remains on her dresser.
(But maybe you loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.)
"Rose!"
She starts, clutching the text to her chest before realizing it's just the Doctor. "Why do you insist on doing that?"
"I think the real question is why do you insist on being so easily scared?" He grins smugly at her as she huffs and sets the hardcover on the couch, standing up to face him.
"Well, then. What's the present?"
He smiles, his usual wide, excited grin, and presents her with a glossy, white pamphlet. "It's for weekly art classes. They're all at night so you wouldn't have to stop work, and they have an open studio in the mornings. You can fine-tune your style and learn how to look for jobs and lots of other things." He looks expectantly at her as she studies the information.
"How much are they?" she finally asks, looking up. "I probably can't- we can't afford them."
"They're free, see?" He pokes eagerly at the back cover. "Didn't you look at who's teaching them?"
She flips over to the front cover and finds the name. John Smith, Artist.
"You're teaching them? I didn't know you could draw."
"No, not me. My dad. I'm technically just one in a long line of John Smiths. Not very original, my family. After he retired, my father decided he wanted to offer art lessons for free in the city, an' when I saw what you could do I realized these would be perfect. So. Do you like it?" He smiles at her again, hopefully, looking more nervous as she considers it. "I hope you won't take it as an insult, I just thought-"
"Are you kidding? This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I never would've thought to do something like this, and no one but you would've told me to try. Thank you, Doctor." She pushes herself onto her tiptoes and wraps her arms around him, and he pulls her close in return.
"Fantastic," he says after pulling back. "Plus, this means you'll meet my father. He's grand. And absolutely mad. But I guess that just means you're going to see where I get it from."
"Of course. I was wondering what gave you that crazy look in your eyes."
"Oh, I blame him."
For a moment they just stand there, grinning stupidly at each other, before all at once Rose realizes that she has to get home and the Doctor realizes that he needs to sleep because his shift starts in the early morning. They say their goodbyes quickly, with the Doctor promising to take her over to the first class when it starts in two weeks.
He decides on calling her a cab home, despite Rose's insistence that she could just walk, and waves goodbye from the sidewalk as the car speeds away, becoming smaller and smaller in her sight as she watches him from the window.
Outside it is warm and still, the smoke from granite buildings making the atmosphere seem like something beautiful in a way it never seemed to before, the last lights of the sun hitting the swirling air so that it looks like something out of the paintings they saw earlier in the day.
As she gets ready for bed she thinks of one of the stories her mother used to read when she was a child from her big book of fairy tales, the story of the man called Bearskin, who sold his soul just to get a good night's sleep, who was as ugly and terrible as they come but found love with a young girl with the other half of his ring.
("I am thy betrothed bridegroom, whom thou sawest as Bearskin, but through God's grace I have again received my human form, and have once more become clean.")
(He went up to her, embraced her, and gave her a kiss.)
She falls asleep thinking of the bearskin man and his bride, of Daddy-Long-Legs and Lock Willow farm, of stiff, cream-coloured canvases and brand new paints, and of a man with clear, blue eyes who could see her even when she thought no one ever could. When she wakes in the morning it's to the grating sound of a particularly loud crow on her windowsill, where her tulips have finally bloomed at last.
Which, she supposes, is a better ratio of good to bad then normal. She takes it as a victory and gets up to begin her day once more.
A/N: I realized that "Animal" by Sky Ferreira was actually a cover of a Miike Snow song, so to clarify, it's not really "by" her. However, that being said, I will put "by" even if the song is a cover if I like one version over another. From now on, I will specify the original singer in my notes. The quotes at the end are from Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. The story is called "Bearskin." In the meantime, read and review! Thanks to those who have, you are absolutely fantastic.
