10.
"and you made up the list of your luckiest stars," magic vs. midas by sunset rubdown
(part one)
She learns late in August, when the sun is high and in flames in the atmosphere and the insects are beginning to creep slowly away from the city, that he used to work with his hands a lot as a teenager, callouses forming on his palms, over his fingertips, between his aching joints. He tells her they never quite went away, that he wouldn't want them to even if they could.
"They're a part of me," he explains softly, holding her hand up with his to the yellow light, and she can physically see the love in his eyes, in the way he looks at her, like she is the sun or the moon or the stars or something like all of them. She looks down, hides herself behind a fan of eyelashes and curled, blonde hair. His hands are as rough as sandpaper, as strong and heavy as an ox, holding her with him like gravity.
She knows for sure in that moment something that has been on the periphery of her vision since the first word he spoke; that she loves him, loves him, loves him, loves him. Instead of feeling reckless and impossibly young the way she did with Jimmy she feels older, important, adoring and adored. She can feel the weight of him settling into her, somewhere underneath her skin, pressing soft against her bones.
Still, she can already see the way it will all happen on the red horizon by the time the summer slides into fall, the leaves dropping from the trees in dried husks, corpses of flies lining the streets.
They take the train to Edinburgh, almost five hours of flickering images against the window of the car, the Doctor sitting across from her and Rose stretched out along the seat, her hands above her head, a strip of pale skin visible between her jeans and her cotton t-shirt. She pretends not to notice the way his eyes fixate on the image, turns her own to the grey sky just outside.
They speak in fragments of conversations, painting words between them like links of a chain, and eat strawberries in the afternoon like the day at the museum when her mouth was red and white and his was making the smallest motions to call her to him.
The British countryside is beautiful and green, rolling fields and blue skies as far as she can see, everything turbulent and gasping with life, and the train rolling along the metal tracks like ticker-tape. There are birds just below the clouds, little v-shaped silhouettes against the watery sun, and Rose hopes they make it to where it's warm, like when she was young and imagined a tropical island of all the birds that "flew south for the winter," flamingoes and penguins and hawks and silky, dark blackbirds all gathered onto a palm tree in the pink sunrise.
She describes the image for the Doctor as best she can when he quips, "penny for your thoughts," and he looks at her mouth and her collarbone and her light brown eyes as she speaks. She can feel the memory of feathers against her forearms as he leans over for a bite of her food, accidentally brushes his leather sleeve against her smooth skin.
"Sounds fantastic," he says softly when she finishes, and he lays down on his seat opposite hers, parting his teeth to scrape against a fine, velvet fruit.
The train chugs to a rumbling halt in the late hours of the afternoon, when the air is warm and still, the sun beginning to sink lower in the sky, and the Doctor nudges her shoulder with his own as they step onto the platform.
"On foreign soil at last, eh, Rose?" he says excitedly, grabbing at his suitcase with his right hand, reaching for her with his left.
She hums a confirmation, taking in the hustle and bustle of the station. Somewhere new, the first country she's been to outside of England her whole life, even if it's only just a neighbor. It figures that it is the Doctor who actually manages to take her there.
She tilts her head back, smiles up at him, threads their fingers together. "Let's go then, shall we?"
The city itself is all narrowed and sloping cobblestone streets, grey-brick buildings pressing in on all sides as they walk through, dodging cars as they drive up close to the sidewalk. Rose can catch fragments of conversations as they pass by, bits and pieces of the American tourists and the locals, both of whom she has to strain to understand. The Americans all speak rapidly, loud, excited gestures and pointing to landmarks, look there, the castle, it's beautiful, and she remembers pictures of New York and Chicago and Los Angeles that she's seen and thinks that this is all as new to them as it is to her. Big wonderful buildings that she's never seen before, and the Scots all walking around with their heads tilted toward the pavement, not even seeing how grand it all is, how gorgeously fantastic.
She breathes in the unknown air with gasping lungs and laughs.
"What's so funny?" he asks, glancing down at her from where he was watching the shadows of the birds against the pale sky, swooping over the green-grey hill overlooking the city.
She smiles, wide and bright, holds their hands up between them in victory, and he understands, all of it, and smiles in return. "Everything."
They stop by the hotel rooms to put all of their things into their adjoining rooms, the Doctor insisting that he'd rather take a long nap than go downstairs and mingle.
"Just go on without me," he mumbles, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Go on. Have fun. Socialize. Meet other artists an' all that jazz."
She huffs, throwing half of his comforter over his prone body before turning back into her own room and to get ready for the evening's activities. She turns her phone on silent, realizing that she'll be seeing a presentation anyway.
She fluffs her hair a bit at the ends, refreshes her eye makeup and lip balm, most of it having been taken off by the long hours on the train. What to wear is a bit more pressing question. On the way up from the lobby, she saw a few people in nice clothes, but still a few people in casual outfits, long scarves, big glasses, cigarette smoke. She eventually decides on a skirt and a top, figuring she can always decide whatever way she'd like to present herself once she gets downstairs.
She stuffs a small notebook and a pencil into her purse on the way out and takes the lift down, shifting nervously on her feet as it dings at each floor. On the third floor, a gaggle of young women get on, talking excitedly between them in Scottish accents about the presentation on Narratives in Painting. Rose decides quickly that she'll follow them to wherever they're going, stepping off the lift as they exit on the ground floor, high-heeled shoes clicking underneath them.
She follows behind them for a minute before one, with lace on her dress and flowers in her hair, turns suddenly, glancing over at Rose. She settles her hazel eyes on her, and Rose feels anxious all of a sudden, wondering if perhaps they wanted her to leave them alone.
"Hello!" the redhead girl says brightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her pierced ear. "Are you headed to the presentation in conference room 103B then?"
Rose nods, sticking out her hand for the other girl to shake. "'m Rose. I was just trying to see where you all were going, so I figured I'd just follow you. Sorry if you didn't want me to-"
"It's no problem at all," she says, shaking Rose's hand enthusiastically. "We all just met on our floors, figured we'd walk over together. I'm Amy. Just follow us and you'll be fine!" She turns on her precariously high heel and hooks her arm through Rose's. "So then. You trying to get into the swing of things too? Make connections, actually find work, all that rot?"
"Mhm," she hums, tying her hair into braids idly as they walk, "I'm just getting into all of it now. My teacher said I should give one of these things a try if I want to find good jobs in the industry."
Amy laughs, a bright, bubbly sound that screams of both experience and innocence, like the tiger and the lamb melded together, a paradox that William Blake wouldn't be able to unravel. She seems to Rose to be like the poem of the crocodile in Alice in Wonderland. (How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws.) Rose reflects that Amy seems to be the same way, both childlike and dangerous. "I know how you feel. Anything beats being a kissogram, I'll tell you that."
"Really?" At Amy's self-deprecating nod she shudders. "Eugh. At least I only work at Henrik's. Much better than having to kiss strangers."
"Well, money is money is money. It's all the same in the end. Aaand here we are," she announces, sweeping her hand around the room. They sit together on one of the right hand rows as more people wander in, searching for seats. Amy tucks her long, white legs underneath her cream-coloured dress as she perches herself on the folding chair, while Rose crosses hers as she angles herself toward the front.
A short, balding man in a coat and tie waddles his way across the stage, and Amy groans under her breath a little bit. "Here we go," she mutters, flipping open her spiral notebook and clicking open her ballpoint pen.
It's interesting, to say the least. Rose listens, writes, doodles little constellations in the corner of the bright white page, laughs at the appropriate times, and claps when it's over. Amy falls asleep halfway through, and Rose has to shake her awake at the end. She comes to as her portfolio falls off of her lap, the strap of her purse sliding down her thin shoulder.
Rose snatches one of his business cards as she exits the room, Amy trudging halfheartedly behind. She twirls her bag around her arm as she turns to the redhead, asks, "Why did you go to the presentation if you were just gonna fall asleep?"
"Nothing else to do," she explains in return, her accent somehow both sharp and lilting. "I'm in photography mostly, I used to model a bit in uni. And that boring little man only focused on paints. Why, 're you in painting?"
Rose nods as they walk along the rows of tables and pamphlets and triptych boards calling for young artists. Amy makes a little humming noise in response, her long legs carrying her just ahead of Rose, so that she has to half-run to catch up. "Are you here with anyone?"
Amy glances at her, scrunches her nose in thought. "Yeah. My husband. We're just married, you know? He insisted on coming along. We live in London."
Rose smiles at the connection. "Me too! About living in London, not about the husband."
"Wait," Amy says abruptly, stopping in her tracks by one of the booths. "This is it."
"What's it?"
Amy smiles wide, bares her perfectly straight teeth. "Torchwood." At Rose's confused expression, she sighs, lifts her shoulders to her ears and holds out her hands. "Don't tell me you've never heard of Torchwood? It's, like, the up-and-coming studio center in London. Apparently they'll hire you if you have any talent, regardless of how much experience you have. Come on, we have to go see it." She pulls Rose by her wrists to the table, slams her hands down on the white-cloth top with a little lift of her eyebrows, as if saying here it is, aren't you excited?
A man slouches in his chair behind the table, his feet propped above it like a teenager, and he twiddles with his floppy hair until Amy gives a harrumph of irritation at not being noticed. He glances up, straightening to a sitting position. He gives Amy a once-over, running his eyes along her frame until she holds up her left hand, points to the ring, and he shifts his eyes away to Rose. "Hello there. How can I help you ladies?"
"You're with Torchwood, yeah?" Rose asks, grabbing one of the papers and filing it carefully between the pages of her notebook.
"I represent them," he explains, pointing to his name badge, which says nothing on it but, "Hello, I'm: AN INTERN," in a messy scrawl. "My boss is gone for dinner, and I'm holding down the fort." He runs his fingers along his suspenders as he stands, straightens his red bow tie and Rose nearly has to stop herself from giggling outright. She doesn't manage to contain her smile, and he looks at her questioningly until she points to his neck. "Oh, this? Just you wait for these to get popular again. Bow ties are cool."
"I'm Amy," she interjects suddenly, holding out her hand for him to shake, which he does, "Pond. I was wondering if you could tell Rose an' me about any jobs you're offering in London."
"Well," he says, looping his voice around the syllable, "as you can see, I'm an intern, and those are the only positions we're offering currently. However," he scrambles for the right papers under his chair, "the job does pay, if not the best wages, and you have a great chance of being able to move up in your respective departments if you manage to hang on for more than a year."
"How long have you been there?" Rose asks, curious.
He half-grins, the corners of his mouth quirking up, and he tilts his head forward in a quasi-nod. "Eleven months. Almost there. If you need any more information, my name is Joseph. Just call the number on there and ask for me or one of my bosses or something."
"Thanks, I will," Amy says idly, turning around to wander off somewhere else. Rose remains put, asks more questions about Torchwood, which seems to be as mysterious and vague as its name. Joseph good-naturedly sticks out all of her interrogation, eventually inviting her to sit in the chair next to him as he explains more.
"Do you-" She pauses, trying to phrase the question in the right way. "Do you need, like, A-levels in order to be considered for one of the positions?"
He pauses, too, scratches the back of his head with his pen. "They prefer people with more advanced education, yeah, but it's not a prerequisite for applying or actually getting an internship. There's a few people who are in the other departments who don't have A-levels who landed a job. If you'd like to get yours while working there they'll help you out with that, too. It all depends, really."
Rose nods her head determinedly. She can deal with "it all depends." She always has.
Amy shows up again a half-hour later with a lanky, big-nosed man in tow. He's handsome, in a shy, scruffy kind of way. It's obvious to anyone that they are a couple in the way they always seem to be in contact, holding hands, nudging shoulders. "Joseph, Rose, this here's my husband, Rory." He waves one hand, settling the other around his wife's waist as she leans into him, reaches around to give him a peck on the cheek. Rose looks away, not sure if the entire exchange is something she's actually meant to be seeing. When she turns, she can see Joseph avoiding staring, too, glancing down at the floor to give them a moment.
"Well," he says after a beat of silence, standing up and stretching his thin, cigarette legs, "I'm starving. Would any of you care to join me in eating actual real food that is not from a train station or an airport?"
"Yes," Rory whispers softly through his teeth, pumping his fist in the air. "This one here never feeds me."
Amy mock-hits his arm. "I feed him, he's just always this concave."
They manage to send Rory to get them McDonald's, Amy pulling up a chair to sit down and talk to Joseph more about Torchwood. When Rose hears about some of the projects they seem to be working on, she understands why Amy was so excited about the center.
"It's all very underground," she explains to Rose while Joseph nods somberly. "Trust me though, by this time next year all of their booths at these conferences with be full of young, hip, starving artists. Just you wait." Behind her, Joseph opens his hands wide, spreads his fingers apart and waggles them, mouths "just you wait," in exaggerated motions. Rose laughs.
"So," Amy turns to Joseph and pokes at his knee, "what exactly do you do over at Torchwood?"
"Graphic design," he yawns out, "just in the department by technicality though. Mostly I just get coffee and file reports. S'pose it beats working somewhere else, doing the same thing without any real chance of doing something I want to do. My boss says there's a job opening up to do actual work. And you're in photography, yeah? They'll have plenty of space. It's the toughest department there is."
Amy smirks, trading a glance with Rose. "I can handle it. Trust me."
Joseph smiles, obviously impressed. "I'll put in a good word when I get back to the city. And you, Rose? You're doing painting, right or illustration? Those two are the hardest to get your foot in the door, but once you're in, you're in." He stretches out his long arms, settling one over the back of Rose's chair as Rory approaches once more, this time carrying four bags of fast food. "Wonderful, Rory! Geronimo!"
Rose quirks an eyebrow in confusion. "We're not jumping or anything."
"I meant into the food." He mimes diving into his ten piece chicken nuggets, grabbing one out of the carton and eating it in one bite, and Rose giggles at his antics. Like Amy, he's a disconcerting mix of cynicism and whimsy, of nostalgia and modernity, and once more Rose is reminded of literature, reflects that he is just like Peter Pan, in the way he moves and speaks and thinks. (It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.)
Rory snorts in amusement as he bites into his own burger, letting out a moan that has Amy nudging him with her shoulder, though seconds later she makes the same noise as she begins her own food. Rose likes Rory the most, she decides. From the little she's seen of him, he is the best of all of them, as genuinely good and true and loving as they come. Amy is lucky to have him, she reflects.
"You two are a pair," Rose laughs as she leans back in her chair, Joseph's hand just brushing against her shoulder across the back of the seat. She has a warm feeling in her stomach, like this is the place she should be, the people she should be with, people like the Doctor who get everything, who don't mind the fact that she works at a department store, who don't blink when she tells them she hasn't got her A-levels.
Amy is listing to Joseph and Rory every presentation she wants to attend tomorrow, the last day of the conference, and she turns to Rose suddenly, her eyes alight with excitement, and says, "Did you want to come out with us tomorrow?"
Rose wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, swallows her food. "Where to?"
"There's a great club nearby," Joseph explains, turning to her, "that Amy was just telling us about. What's is called again?"
"Dalek." Amy says dryly. "The owner has a thing for made-up words. Apparently, it's one of his creations, some alien robot thing. It's the logo of the place."
"Looks like a glorified tin can if you ask me," Rory says, sipping at his soda.
Amy scoffs, turns to Rose once more. "You in, Rose?"
She looks from face to face, all of them looking at her expectantly. "Yeah," she breathes, nodding her head. "Sounds like fun."
Amy and Rory cheer, Joseph holding out his hand to high-five her, and she does. She can hear the sounds of people moving around them, going from booth to booth, but never stopping by the one that could lead them out of whatever it is they're trying to escape or take them to whatever it is they're trying to go to. She feels like she's accomplished something, taken a step in the right direction, and it all just feels-
The air around them is cool and clean, and it leaves a peppermint taste in Rose's mouth when she breathes it in to speak.
Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
A/N: Amy and Rory and Eleven! I based a lot of Eleven's personality on the fact that Matt Smith wears a lot of hipster clothes and is kinda dry in his humor, but still whimsical. I don't actually know much about studio centers, but I'm basically thinking that like real Torchwood, artsy Torchwood would be all about having pull in everything it can, so it's essentially like this massive underground art company with lots of employees and lots of departments. I will be stopping this at around 13 chapters. I think a story at around 40-45k words is a good length for my first full-length fic. Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! Keep reading and reviewing and all those wonderful things.
Part 2 of this will be posted on Friday, so everyone look out for that. Of course I wasn't just going to leave you all hanging for a whole week without sufficient amounts of Doctor in this chapter!
(Side note: found out the new Doctor, huh? I like him.)