Let it be known that I had positively no idea what I was doing for this chapter. No plan, not any idea whatsoever. Up in the air, but without George Clooney (I still want to see that movie). This is going to be a cycle for the next few chapters too, because I know how I'm going to end (sad) the story, but it's those darn fillers I'm worried about. But not to fret, they will all be filled with Doctor-Rose-Master love goodness and stuff.
And I nearly put off posting for another day because I made the mistake of eating a bunch of cake and then two trukey burgers. NOT a good idea. I still can't bear the word "cookie." (*cringes*)
But I love you all, because you're so nice and supportive. So I shove my pain aside and post CHAPTER 10!!!! WOOO-HOOOO!!!! The big 1-0, yo. I feel like I'm in a telethon.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, some things would have gone totally different, dude, but I don't own it, so you can forget it.
Henrik's was the last place Rose imagined she'd be going for a wedding dress. In reality, Earth was the last planet she thought she'd be buying her wedding dress on, and yet, here she was, standing on the concrete sidewalk in front of the shop where everything had started. It was because of this very shop that she had met the Doctor in the first place, therefore making this very shop the entire reason she was currently with child.
Weird.
She had earlier assumed that different planets—being so extravagant and unbelievable, in contrast to the one planet she was so used to—would have wedding dresses available to her that strayed from anything average, as well as not being too horrific. This was the dream: that everything she would need for a wondrous wedding would come to her with every landing the Tardis made on the lands of new and breathtaking places. The Doctor was even helping her plan the event, yet another reason why she could never deny her love for him. His job was booking the church and deciding which great alien leaders would sit next to whom (to avoid the potential of wars breaking out) at the reception.
Enter the Master, who apparently lived to kill people's dreams. Her dream of a beautiful, unique wedding dress was cast aside when he slammed half a dozen wedding dress magazines in front of her.
"There," he said, pleased with himself, but for doing what, she didn't know and was a little afraid to find out.
"What are these?" she asked warily.
"All your hopes in booklet form." He peeled off the cover of the first magazine, letting Rose gape at the horrendous fashions for wedding dresses — but no — they were too awful to be considered wedding dresses. They were more like scraps glued together.
"What are these?!" she shrieked, gazing in horror at each magazine to see if it was true.
"These, Poppy, are the fantabulous wedding dresses you've been anticipating to see for so long. Well, here you go. Each one from a different planet."
Rose had to look at one dress upside down. "This isn't a dress, it's an inflatable chair."
The Master only shrugged, clearly smug, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
The moment he left her to her grief, she snatched her mobile and dialed her mother's number as if her life was at risk.
Gazing up at the Henrik's building now, it was nearly impossible to believe how much things had changed in her life. What had happened to the concept of normalcy? Did it disappear the moment she met the Doctor? Or perhaps nothing had ever been normal, and maybe it was even for good reason. Maybe a lack of regularity was good thing. After all, she would have never met the Doctor without it, and she certainly wouldn't be pregnant with the child that she adored so dearly.
"Rose, are you coming?" Jackie called after her. Rose nodded and trailed after her mother, into the shop and all its memories.
The prestigious section of wedding dresses in the store was small but beautiful. Each white gown was made with the utmost precision, not a bead or piece of embroidery out of place, the fabric only the best. Rose recalled stocking up the dresses when she worked at Henrik's, but she could not admit that she spent her days sighing with eagerness over her wedding day. She'd been much too young at the time (not that she was so much older now), and back then, the idea of marrying anyone would have resulted in a vision of Mickey in tails by her side. This idea was only one of amusement, for marrying Mickey wasn't ever something she or the implausible groom had truly considered, and Mickey hated wearing tails, anyhow.
Jackie returned to the dressing room with a stack of dresses, clearly more than was permitted to take into a changing room. She'd probably fought over half of them.
"I like this one the best," she told Rose automatically, holding out a white silk gown with lace and beads and ribbons and basically everything else that had been lying around the room it was designed in. Rose tried out the dress before the others, and as her mother continued to point out, it looked gorgeous. Rose had her breath taken from her at the sight of herself in a wedding dress, of all things. Because she was getting married.
And that was far too freaky to comprehend until now.
Jackie was in tears when she saw the gown on her daughter, thinking back to the days of a young Rose playing with her dolls and trying out make up and dressing up with her other little friends. Where had all the time gone?
"This isn't it," Rose sighed, and Jackie wiped her eyes to narrow them.
"It isn't? Why not? You look like an angel!"
Rose shrugged. Her eyes flitted from her stomach to the dress itself. Certainly, it was remarkable, but it wasn't the dress. She's seen enough to believe that somewhere in the universe was the dream gown she would wear at her wedding. She just had to find it.
The Doctor did not like shopping. And most of the time, he did not like the Master. Give him a doomed government, a crazed dictator or a planet with a sentence of T-minus-ten-till-self-destruct. He'd take it any day. But shopping, he did not like, and the Master, he did not like.
So he really did not like shopping with the Master.
"Would you stop pouting so much?" the Master nagged. In his hands were a cornucopia of shopping bags from every store they passed by, and the objects inside them were just as pointless as one could imagine, at least if it had been bought by the yin to the Doctor's yang.
"Would I stop pouting?" the Doctor snorted. "That's rich, coming from the man who makes moping an Olympic sport."
The Master harrumphed. "To prove that I'm far more mature than you are, I'm going to take the high road and practice a little technique I like to call 'ignoring you'. You ever hear of it?"
"Only when you're around."
"Oh, come now. Don't be like that." The Master looped his arm through the Doctor's lagging one. "We can't fight. We're BFFFFs… or whatever that stupid-but-somehow-still-existing Earth acronym goes. The only way we're going to find a decent tux for you is if we keep a positive attitude."
The Doctor stared at the Master as if he had grown three extra heads.
The Master frowned. "I don't know where that came from either."
"I think you need to lay off on the energy drinks."
"Bite your tongue."
The Doctor sighed and allowed himself to be dragged into the Henrik's shop. Deciding to block out the Master's incessant voice, the Doctor remembered the day he met Rose Tyler in the basement of the same shop, only he looked quite different back then. Regardless of his transformation in looks and personality, he could still recall how much he admired the brilliant Miss Tyler, the deep love he felt for her that actually revealed itself to him back when they'd met Jack, and he witnessed how much Rose had fawned over the then-stranger.
Not that he'd ever tell Jack any of that. No need to inflate his ego any more.
Suit shopping wasn't nearly as stressful as he expected wedding dress shopping was for Rose, who'd spent the last three days pouring her devotion into discovering the perfect dress. The Doctor, despite his love for Earth, didn't think he'd ever fully understand such simple customs from the human planet, such as desiring the most perfect piece of fabric in the entire galaxy, but he decided that the need was universal, for it was no different on Gallifrey. Only there was the dress traditionally green instead of white. This was precisely what he told Rose earlier that day.
"Green's a great color," he'd explained, trying to be biased. Unfortunately, even he knew how much of a terrible liar he was.
Rose played along anyway. "Is it?" she asked inquisitively, finishing writing out the menu for the reception (the everlasting war between chicken and fish reigned on).
"It's the color of plants," he said positively. "Plants are good. We can breathe because of them, and that's quite helpful."
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
Much like her sarcasm, he really didn't notice the dry line of humor. "And it's made from blue and yellow, and we all like blue and yellow. Yellow's the color of the sun and blue is the color of… well, blue things."
"Weren't we once almost burnt to a crisp by the sun after being sentenced to a flaming prison of doom?"
"In with the positive, out with the negative, Rose. I'm trying to be subtle."
"And what would you possibly need to be subtle about?" she asked innocently, leaning toward him, a teasing glint in her eyes. She was fairly good at covering up most of the hints to what she knew was what he was trying so hard to imply, but she couldn't help the light giggle that escaped her after watching the Doctor's increasing frustration.
He scowled and got up from his seat. "You're despicable," he mumbled, and he walked out the door in a halfhearted huff.
If someone (not the Master) asked the Doctor if he ever thought that he would one day marry Rose Tyler, the shop girl he met in this very shop just before he blew it up—What fun times—he would have denied that he'd even considered the idea of falling in love with her, which was a lie. He'd considered the idea all too frequently, but just as frequently pushed it aside, for falling for someone wasn't part of the runaway Time Lord plan.
But then again, the baby hadn't been either, and by now, the Doctor and Rose were all too aware of how pleasant unexpected surprises really were.
He could have reveled over his upcoming marriage and child for hours, but the Master brought him out of his head by shoving him behind a stack of men's ties. Before he could demand to know what was wrong with his partner in crime, the Master shushed him and pointed.
"It's the flower and her she-witch mother!"
The Doctor's eyes darted down the aisle that lied ahead. Indeed, there was Rose and Jackie, browsing over the small selection of ready-made wedding dresses. Jackie's arms were packed with white gowns, while Rose looked so fragile in her pregnant state, studying each dress to the point where she could probably describe them by heart later. The Doctor watched her for a few more seconds before he realized how suspicious he and the Master must have appeared. Also, he was still getting a beating from Jackie over the whole proposal fiasco, and he was near-certain that stalking her as she decided on a wedding dress would not aid him in getting brownie points.
"Oh, get up!" he hissed, pulling the Master to his feet. "You're being ridiculous!"
"Please! Like you honestly don't want to see which dress Poinsettia picks out," the Master snorted. "She won't even know we're here."
"Somehow I highly doubt that. You're track record of deceitful plans isn't as high and mighty as you believe. I nearly got my head ripped off the last time I listened to you. I refuse to do that again, so bugger off and let me just pick out a suit in peace!"
The Master blinked. "All right. Have it your way. Hey, Orchid, Orchid's mother!" Then, he waved at Rose and Jackie in such a loud and showy manner that it wasn't only the Tylers whose attention he'd gained. The Doctor tackled him to the floor before any more damage could be done.
But it was too late. Rose and Jackie had seen the Master and caught the glimpse of the Doctor as he slammed the Master down behind a shelf. Jackie and Rose exchanged odd glances and waltzed over to the two arguing Time Lords, while a mound of shopping bags from other shops surrounded them.
"What are you doing?!" the Doctor was growling at the Master as the Tyler women approached them. "Are you completely insane?! They are going to murder me!"
The Master just looked up at him coolly, shrugging the Doctor off. "You mess with the bull…"
"What's going on here?" The manager of Henrik's was towering over the Doctor and Master's strange position, as the Doctor was sitting on top of the Master, pinning his arms above his head. Rose giggled and emerged with her mother into view. Seeing them, the Doctor and Master paled even more than they had at the appearance of the shop manager.
"Hello, boys," Jackie greeted brightly with a defined smirk.
Rose bit down on her bottom lip to subside the laughter. "Is there something you might want to tell me, darling?" she asked the Doctor innocently. In reply, he grimaced, removing himself from the Master.
"Officer, this man has been following me for days now, and it's becoming quite unnerving!" accused the Master, pointing his index finger at the Doctor. "I didn't want to cause a scene, but he just won't leave me alone! Everywhere I go, every corner I turn, there he is! I have a wife and three children! Doesn't their safety matter at all?"
"Do you have an off switch?" snapped the Doctor. "And really, I wouldn't stalk you if you were the last person alive! If anyone, I would stalk the Great One of Paroom! Now there's a bloke worth being restrained against. All those towers on Paroom, miles tall, with the songs of the Paroomian Pearl written into the walls. Beautiful, every one of 'em," he added to Rose. "We must make a note of visiting there."
"See?" exclaimed the Master. "He's a complete nutter! And a dog, I have a dog, too! Yes, we call him… er… Doggy."
"Is that the best you can come up with?" Jackie asked.
The Master didn't get the chance to answer, for that was when security arrived and forcibly removed him and the Doctor from the shop. As Rose watched her fiancé get kicked out of the shop with as much dignity as one could have while with the Master, she prayed that every day would be like this when their child arrived, that it would be just as insane and delightful as this very moment was. Somehow, she suspected that it would.
She and Jackie turned back to the wedding dresses and continued on their quest.
In the end, the hunt for the perfect dress was resolved, but not in the form of the particular dress that Jackie had adored. In fact, they hadn't even gotten the dress from Henrik's. After leaving the shop, dejected by the lack of a discovery, Rose stumbled across a bohemian shop called Mad Max's Wedding Emporium, filled with an array of dresses that were beyond the norm. It didn't take long to find the most beautiful one she'd ever laid eyes on. Immediately, it was purchased, and she and Jackie were on their way, even more content than they had been after seeing the Doctor and Master's fumble.
Rose sighed, staring at the billowy dress with butterfly sleeves and a few sequins just along the waist. She smiled and tucked the deep green wedding gown safely into the back of the wardrobe, waiting to be worn on their special day.