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. We are pleased to announce that we now officially own Jenny, Joseph, and Stephanie. Wait, what? We already owned you because we created you?? Then why'd we have to fight so hard to get you!? OV is getting their agent on the phone. The Doctor is in the corner snickering. This is not helping. Stay tuned for the next update...

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

Chapter 20:

Joseph escorted an older woman who was elegantly but practically dressed over to Rose. "I'm sure she'll be able to help you find what you need, ma'am. Thank you."

Rose returned Joseph's nod and smiled at the woman, getting the idea that she must be a very good customer of the store. Her face seemed familiar, so Rose expected she must have seen the lady at Henrick's before. "Could I show you something in particular?" she asked politely, enunciating carefully, trying to keep her accent at a minimum.

"Hello, Rose," answered the woman, offering a hand. "I'm sorry we haven't been introduced before. I'm Doris Lethbridge-Stewart, Joshua's aunt."

Rose felt a brief surge of panic, but tamped it down quickly. Joshua had only ever described his aunt in the kindest, most loving words. His uncle was another story, but she didn't see the Brigadier here anywhere. Even if he were, he'd never treated Rose with anything other than politeness, but it would definitely make her worry about Joshua. "I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am. Joshua's told me so much about you." She hoped her voice didn't sound as shaky as she felt. She'd not been this nervous meeting this woman's husband, but then, it had been a bad situation and she'd hardly been awake at the time.

"I hope they were nice things," she said with a pretty smile that meant she was certain they were. "And I really hope you don't mind my dropping by your work like this. I thought I could take you to lunch if you had the time."

"Oh," said Rose, not really sure what to say. "I... yes, that would be very nice. I... thank you, ma'am."

"Doris," she corrected, firmly but gently. "When will you be free?"

"Actually, I was just about to go when Joseph stopped me. Just gimme a second. I need to check with someone real quick, ok?"

"All right. I'll wait for you by the door."

Rose fled to the break room to find Wilson waiting. "What do I do?" she pleaded, her heart pounding with nerves. "His aunt's come to take me to lunch and... my God, she's like meeting the Queen, or something, Wilson, she's gorgeous and so..."

"Breathe, first," Wilson suggested, his eyes twinkling merrily. "Wait, is this the woman that has Joseph twitching like his pacemaker's set on overdrive?" Wilson laughed then, knowing that if it were known that Rose had left her alone, Joseph really would need a pacemaker. He also knew Rose would freak out if she realized that. He redirected this amusing train of thought and focused on calming his panicking mate. "Obviously she was curious about you. Does she seem nice?"

"Yeah, but Joshua always said she was. He also said... Oh, she's so posh, Wilson! She's gonna think..."

"No, she is not. Whatever you're thinking, she isn't. Now calm down, take a deep breath, get off the clock. There's a nice little cafe on the opposite corner, or you can suggest that posh place down next block."

"S'gotta be the cafe, I can't afford anything else..."

"She'll pay." Wilson stated calmly, aware of the way it could infuriate the worried.

"I don't care!" Rose said. "That's not the point."

"It will be to her. All right. Here's a tenner if you need it. If you do, get me back on payday, yeah?"

"I... Wilson, you're the best, you know that?"

"Yeah, I do. Now get going, time's wasting."

"Thanks!"

Doris was already regretting her rash decision to drop in to meet Rose, as the girl seemed unbelievably nervous. At first she hadn't been able to even fathom why, but a few nasty glances from the other shop girls directed at Rose's retreating back gave her a pretty good idea. Office politics were the same the world over, whether you were a shop girl or a general's second wife. Some people had too much time on their hands, and easily found time to be insulting behind the backs of the prettiest woman in the office or the "trade-up".

She identified with the poor girl more than Rose would ever understand. When she reappeared, a fixed but sunny smile on her pretty face, Doris returned her smile with warmth and kindness.

Rose suggested a small cafe across the way and Doris thought it looked lovely so she agreed. As they walked, she thought Rose was becoming more relaxed with every single step she took away from Henrick's. "You know, my husband's description of you didn't quite do you justice, but Joshua's is pretty much spot on."

"He's good with words," Rose said, the hint of a little secret in the quirk of her lips.

Doris nodded. "A gifted poet, yes, among other things. But I did come to meet you, not so much talk about Joshua. Don't want him to get the idea he's being spied on."

Rose laughed at that. "Yeah, probably not. No telling what he'd do about it. Though it's a fair bet something would end up blowing up."

They reached the cafe and didn't even have to wait for seats, having beaten the lunchtime crush by a good ten minutes or so. "Do you enjoy your job, Rose?" Doris asked after they'd ordered drinks - ice water for Rose, a cup of tea with lemon for Doris.

"I like helping people with everything," she said. "And usually, they're very nice." She shrugged and tilted her head. "I mean, it isn't what I want to do forever, but it's something I can do and Joseph says I do a good job."

They chatted non-commitally about Rose's job for a few moments until they'd decided and ordered their lunches. Doris decided she liked the girl, who seemed pleasant and gentle, but she was so distant as if she was still nervous.

"Do you sing all kinds of music, Rose?" she asked, trying to put the girl more at ease with a topic that interested her.

"Oh, anything I can learn, yeah. Well, not opera and stuff, I can never get my head around it. But pretty much anything else."

"We have a music room at the house, you simply will have to see it. I'd like to have you there, you know." She rolled her eyes and smiled and refrained from mentioning that the girl had been expected there the night before. "The house is positively massive and there simply aren't enough people around most days. Alistair inherited it and the first time I saw it, I thought 'Did I really think I wanted a house like this when I was a little girl?' I grew up here in London, you see."

"Oh, that's funny," Rose said with a real, genuine smile. "You know, you don't ever think how you're going to keep up with a huge place, I guess. I've lived in the same flat most of my life, so I wouldn't know what to do with even a place as big as Joshua's flat."

Doris nodded. "Then you'll sympathize with me properly when you see it. I've done a lot of gardening over the years, and most of the house is the way I want it now, but when we first lived there, I felt like a maid creeping around in an old mausoleum. Of course, Joshua helps with the garden, and I can usually get he and John to bring some friends and come move furniture."

"Joshua said you have a great view of the stars."

Doris was intrigued. Rose's expression of awe and wonder at the very mention told her that the girl had yet another characteristic in common with the Time Lord disguised as her nephew. "There's a bench on one of the balconies I put in just for him. He likes to sit out there at night, some times it's impossible to get him to come in."

"I can imagine," Rose agreed. Doris could read on her face that Rose would be on that bench with him for as long as she could keep her eyes open.

Their food arrived and they busied themselves with their meal for a moment, comparing notes on the food they'd ordered and variations they had tried. "Do you cook?" Doris ventured.

"Oh, I would. Don't really have the time or the kitchen to do anything fancy, but I can boil water. Did you teach Joshua how to bake? We were talking about that of all things the other night."

Doris shrugged delicately. "I showed him some things," she said. She had, actually. There wasn't much else you could do with a sleepless alien wandering around your house at half three in the morning except show him the library or show him the kitchen. And he'd already read the whole library. "How ever did you get on the subject?"

"I was thinking about making biscuits for my friend here at work. His birthday's next week and he's always complaining about store-bought ones." Rose looked thoughtful for a second, then frowned. "That reminds me, 'cuz I forgot to ask. When's Joshua's?"

"His birthday?" She had to scramble only briefly, because they had picked an arbitrary date on the calendar and done some quick math with it, based on how old he thought he was. "November 23rd. He'll be fourty-one."

"Got to remember that," Rose said, and pulled out her mobile, probably to add the information just in case.

Doris, however, would be willing to bet she'd never forget it, possibly not even years from now, when the Doctor had gone back into space and time and left all of this behind. As she busied herself with her thoughts and her lunch, Doris could only hope that when he left, he had a small blonde at his side and a reason to live again. In the meantime, he had asked for two years and that was a long time in the human world. The Doctor could change the world in two minutes, so changing his own life and Rose's, with that much time between them, was a very real possibility despite the difficulty presented by that task.

"How are you two getting along now?" Doris ventured, finally, when the meal was done and the plates were cleared away and the small talk started to feel a bit stilted.

Rose's frown didn't bode well. "I haven't talked to him in a couple of days, actually. Not since Tuesday morning. He brought me breakfast." She shook her head. "I've been worried about him, but I didn't want to... you know..."

Doris nodded. She did know. Rose was incredibly tactful and seemed to be... a bit different. By now, most girls would have grilled her and Harry and John and maybe even Alistair to try to find out everything they could about what had happened to him, but Rose seemed to instinctively know that this was the sort of information you only got from the source. It was an uncommonly mature behavior in a woman so young, and even grown ones seemed to forget it a lot. "You might want to do later this evening. I've been out shopping all morning, so I have to get back before Alistair thinks I've run off with his gold card."

Rose grinned. "Is that likely to happen?" she asked, and Doris was positively delighted to hear a little teasing in her voice.

"You never know," she said. "When Joshua was younger, I once left him and Alistair and some enormous boy I hadn't even met properly to do everything while I ran off with a group of girls in a sports car. I think Joshua did the cooking. He's rather good at that, thankfully. Alistair can't, unless there's charcoal involved for some reason."

Rose's expression was amused and curious. "He just seems to know everything," she mused. "Like a genius or something."

"He is, Rose," Doris told her, honestly. "Joshua is a genius." She stopped before she said too much and asked the waiter for the check instead. "But don't tell him I told you, that part of his ego is still going strong."

Rose nodded, her dark eyes sparkling mischief. "Wouldn't want to let it go to his head, I guess," she agreed. Then she straightened and offered to pay the bill.

Doris shook her head and handed over her credit card. "Let's let Alistair pay for this one," she said, trying for girlish conspiracy in her tone. "He owes me for a dinner anyway."

Driving home, Doris decided that Rose Tyler had the kind of unique and sparkling personality that just might be enough to mend even the war-rended Time Lord's wounded soul.