*pokes head in* ummm, so it's been almost two months since I updated and I'd like to apologize for that. I was just very stuck for a while and couldn't make myself work on it but I was thinking about it! I promise that I'm never going to abandon this story and thanks for sticking with me through my very sporadic updating! Time to see how Rose and John get along when trying to work together again...this time with the consequences of their last job lurking just beneath the surface.
Rose insisted on detouring to get chips on the way to John's flat despite the early hour. He had tried to object but had been unable to enforce his decision when she shot him a tongue touched grin and told him that it was never too early for chips.
By the time they reached his building he was ready to curse the existence of the fried treat. No one should sound or look like they're enjoying food that much. Rose licked the last traces of salt and vinegar off her fingers while John dug around in his pockets for his keys.
He jammed the key into the lock, turning it violently before pushing into his flat. Rose followed him in, looking around curiously. She was willing to admit that she had wondered what John's place looked like a few times.
Granted she'd imagined it as more of a high-tech lair than what appeared to be a rather normal, small flat.
The living room was the first space she entered and it was almost barren. There was a battered leather sofa and a low table in front of a television. There were no dirty glasses or abandoned snacks to indicate he spent significant time there though.
The kitchen was larger and looked like it was actually used, which surprised her a bit. Utensils were in a holder next to the stove and looked well-used, a spice rack on the counter was fully stocked and there were a few dishes in the sink. John seemed like the kind of guy who didn't take the time to cook and lived on takeout and microwave dinners but all the signs of a practical kitchen were in front of her.
It was certainly a more functional kitchen than hers was.
(She actually did live on takeout and microwave dinners.)
John looked like he was going to walk straight through the kitchen without stopping so Rose piped up. "Can I talk you out of a cuppa or a coffee or somethin' before we start? Chips made me thirsty and I can always use more caffeine."
"Fine," he grunted. Rose being in his flat was throwing off his equilibrium. It was like meshing two worlds that should not touch. But he'd been the one to volunteer his flat as a work space so he couldn't very well complain about it now.
Rose watched as he filled the kettle and grabbed two cups from the cabinet next to the fridge. He plopped two tea bags into the mugs and poured the water over them before proceeding to scowl at them, possibly trying to scare them into brewing faster.
Figuring that trying to talk to him at this point would be pushing her luck before they'd even started working, the thief took the opportunity to study him while he wasn't paying attention. His shoulders were tense under his ever-present leather jacket and she had to fight the urge to reach out and see if she could relieve the tension.
Damn if she wasn't still extremely drawn to the man; arrogant, backstabbing prat though he was.
"Milk?" John's voice interrupted her thoughts.
"Ta. Sugar too, if you have it."
Rose stepped up to the counter to fix her tea with the provided milk and sugar, shooting sideways glances to see how the hacker took his tea (two sugars, no milk).
They leaned against opposite counters and stared at each other in stony silence while they sipped their tea.
Rose couldn't stand the silence for long though. "Nice place you've got here," she ventured. Seemed like a safe enough topic.
John shrugged. "Guess so." He drained the last of his cup and looked pointedly at her. "Finish up so we can get to work. No open containers in the workroom, equipment's too valuable to risk."
"And there you go again with the condescension. Was wonderin' when you were going to get around to it."
He just rolled his eyes at her.
She took a final sip and placed her mug next to his in the sink and waited for him to lead the way to his "workroom." The flat didn't seem big enough to have another room other than his bedroom and a loo down the hallway, much less a whole room dedicated to his work.
Instead of leading her down the hallway to the right of the kitchen, he went towards a door on the left that Rose had assumed was a cupboard.
She couldn't have been more wrong. The door led into a room the size of an entire flat and it was filled completely with state of the art equipment.
Rose had closed her mouth by the time she looked back at John but it didn't matter. He was smirking at her.
Smug bastard.
"How did you fit this room, then? I know your flat isn't this big."
"Obviously it is," he replied, walking towards his main workstation, feeling her glare intensify on his back. "I own the building, I had two flats connected and turned this one into my office."
"'You own the building,'" Rose mocked in a bad imitation of his accent. "Who the hell owns a building in London?"
"Me."
"Riiight." She rolled her eyes and watched him settle in at his workstation, ignoring her. "Got a place for me to set up or am I supposed to just stand here and look pretty?"
John could not resist the obvious setup. He ran his eyes over the woman in front of him, taking the time to appreciate how her button-down strained just slightly over her chest. "While I'm sure you think you'd be exceptional at that, there's a table over there that you can use."
He gestured towards a table on the other side of the room with a singular computer on it. It was connected to his secure server but not to his databases and private information and work. He could connect it with the right password but he preferred to have a "guest" computer that he didn't have to worry about someone using.
That being said, no one else had ever been in the room to use the guest computer but there was a first time for everything. Apparently that was especially true when Rose Tyler was involved, at least in his experience.
Plus, if she was over at the guest computer she would be out of his line of sight and therefore not as much of a distraction.
He wasn't even sure what she was going to do right now. They didn't have the blueprints yet or any information about the bank or which safety deposit box the alleged USB was in. He was going to have to hack the bank for their security information and then turn that over to Rose so she could pick it all apart and put together an entrance and exit strategy.
He stopped short when he realized he already knew exactly how they could work together after only one job over a year ago, what she was better at than he was. It was an uncomfortable realization; John hated working with anyone else and for very good reasons, he wasn't going to let the blonde thief be his exception.
He told her that she could use the computer and then focused in on his own screens, shutting out the rest of the room as he dove into the world of cyberspace that he knew so well.
Rose watched him for a moment before honing in on her own computer screen. She may not be a hacker but she knew how to get useful information as well.
She quickly navigated her way to the Barclays website and started browsing.
Rose fished a piece of paper out of her purse and started writing down relevant information like the hours of the bank and some various bits of information on opening an account and safety deposit box.
"John?" He did not move, made no indication that he had heard her at all. "Hello, Earth to the doctor, I have a question."
He still didn't even so much as twitch.
"Oi! I'm trying to ask a question here!" Rose said, considerably louder.
John jumped this time. "What?" he asked gruffly, annoyed at being interrupted.
"Your one-track mind strikes again," she said, shooting a teasing smile at him as she got up to walk closer to him, notes in hand. "I just wanted to know if there was a phone in here I could use or if I should go find a payphone or something."
"Who are you calling?"
Confused was a good look on him, she decided. "The bank. Going to make an appointment to meet with someone about possibly opening an account along with a safety deposit box. That way I can see inside before we pull the job."
"That's a stupid idea," John said flatly.
Rose bristled at his dismissal. "Why? Because you didn't think of it?"
"No, because it involves an unnecessary amount of risk." John thought he was doing an excellent job of remaining calm and patient.
The thief moved a few paces closer, leaving about five feet between them. "No it doesn't. People make appointments like this all the time; it won't be suspicious at all."
"If you go in, you'll be on their security footage and people will remember you," he said flatly. "Too much risk."
"They can't check out every single person who goes into the bank in the days leading up to a robbery!" Rose exclaimed, exasperated already. She'd remembered that working with John was frustrating but the memory did not do justice to dealing with it in the moment.
"And it's not like I'd be going as myself," she continued, "I have plenty of aliases and disguises that would work, the risk is practically non-existent!"
"You're not going." John said calmly as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
"The hell I'm not!" Rose exploded, throwing her hands in the air, eyes shooting daggers at the hacker. "You can't tell me what to do; we went over this last time. This is a perfectly sound method of getting eyes on the target. This isn't my first time casing a place, you know."
"I'm not questioning your ability, just the wisdom of putting yourself on camera at a place we'll be robbing soon." He got to his feet, pacing away from her.
He could not figure out how the two of them either worked together seamlessly or were at each other's throats. This is why he worked alone, people were so complicated.
"No, this is about the fact that you don't trust me to do my damn job. If you don't want to trust me as a person, fine. I learned my lesson about trust last time. But trust my ability as a thief."
"Thieves' honor? That's really what you're going with?"
Rose growled at him, actually growled, and looked like she might hurl herself across the room and actually try to rip out his throat. John was forcibly reminded of how her demeanor had struck him as wolfish when she had revealed her plan to clean out the Agency. It was even more apparent now; she definitely had something of the wolf about her.
"I'm not changin' my mind, Rose. Going to the bank is a stupid idea."
"It's not your decision to make! You can't just dictate to me." She clenched her fists and looked away from John for a moment.
"You know what?" she asked, suddenly reestablishing eye contact. "I don't know why I thought I could work with you again. You're insufferable and arrogant and don't listen to a bloody word I say."
She stalked over to the table she'd been working at and grabbed her bag before swinging back towards the door, movements jerky and tense.
"You don't want me here anyways. You've barely been tolerating my presence since we walked into your flat, so I'm gonna do both of us a favor here and leave."
"What about Jack? Some friend you are, if you're just going to leave him hanging."
Oh, he was treading on dangerous ground with, and he knew it.
"Don't you dare question my loyalty to my friends." Her voice was quiet, icy – a marked contrast to the fire and volume she'd brought to all of their other disagreements. "I never said that I was abandoning the job, just leaving you. This," she gestured between the two of them "is apparently not going to work a second time."
She smirked, not even bothering to hide the bitterness, "One show only, remember? No encores."
"So what, you're gonna walk out and try to do this job on your own then?"
"If that's what it takes, then yeah."
"You're not a bank robber."
"Neither are you."
"You don't know that."
She scoffed, "Please. You're not a bank robber. You would've gloated about it already if you were."
"I know more about banks than you do," he tried. He wasn't sure exactly why he was fighting so hard to get her to stay but it felt imperative that she did and not only because it would take the two of them to pull off this heist.
"You don't know that because you haven't asked me a single question about what I might know!" Rose shot back. "You haven't told me a damn thing about what you're working on so it's like I've been working by myself anyways!" Rose yanked the hand she had been gesticulating with through her hair in frustration.
John took a few steps towards her, his long strides covering the space separating them quickly. She swerved around him and made for the door. He reached out and grabbed her arm as she passed.
The thief slapped at his hand. "Don't touch me."
He let go as if he'd been burned.
Rose reached for the doorknob and something in John snapped.
"No. You're not leaving." He reached past her and pushed the door closed, caging her against it with his arms. "You're just still angry at me for kissing you and then leaving you in the police box. And if that's why you are walking out right now then you need to stop and grow the hell up."
Rose glanced at the leather-coated limbs trapping her before glaring up at him, eyes dark with anger. "Damn right I'm still angry at you for that but I'm leaving because I can't trust you and you can't trust me and I can't work that way."
"Trust is not a necessary element in our line of work."
"Maybe not for you but it is for me!"
"Dammit Rose, I don't trust anyone, it's not personal!"
"It feels personal!" She said, poking him in the chest, her face moving closer to his in defiance. "It feels very personal because you made it personal when you locked me in that fucking box and left me there!"
"Actually, I think I made it personal before locking you in the box," he growled, remembering just how personal they had gotten.
Rose's breath hitched as his eyes flickered down to her mouth. "We're not talking about that."
"Why would I want to talk?" he countered before leaning down and capturing her mouth with his, pressing her body against the door with his own.
