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. The Doctor has gotten onto IMDb and is apparently shopping for a new face. Jack's trying to talk him into becoming Hugh Jackman. We've offered to let him stay on the internet if he'll just sign the paperwork, but he's jiggery-pokeried something and now you can get an internet connection from the toaster. Mind, it doesn't make toast any more but all Jack said about that was that at least it wasn't the blender. At this rate he's liable to regenerate himself from a tragic toaster accident and the paperwork will never be signed.

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

Chapter 35:

Rose decided that, rehab and uncomfortable bed aside, she was perfectly willing to have a go at staying like this forever. "I brought your mail," she said quietly to the man in her lap. Her fingers stroked softly along the curve of his ear, finding a great deal of interest in the way he muttered and leaned in to the touch.

"I have mail?" he asked, looking a bit surprised. "I never get mail."

She smiled softly. "Well, I think some of 'em are your bills."

"Gah," he complained softly. "Domestics. I had all that set up on the computer so I sorta forgot about it. What else?"

"Well, there's a note that I think's from the garage," she said. "And that's never good news."

He sighed. "Probably not. Although if they wrote the car off as a total loss, it wouldn't be a total loss, 'cuz the insurance could just pay it off and have done with it. Domestics, like I said, never did understand all the paperwork that has to go with owning stuff. S'like you can't get on with living your life 'cuz you're forever stuck in some queue somewhere fighting with bill collectors."

"Tell me about it," she agreed blandly. "And there's one more thing."

"What's that, love?"

"I made some phone calls on Friday, and I think I found out some stuff you might can use."

He sat up and stared at her. "Rose!" he exclaimed. "You... that's... Rose!"

She smiled nervously under his awestruck stare. He vaulted from the bed, snatched her up and, given the limited space in the small room, twirled her carefully around. She couldn't help laughing and burying her face in his chest, listening to the doubled throb under the soft chuckle. "So I did good?" she asked.

"Dunno yet," he said teasingly. "Let's see what you got."

She batted at his shoulder and pulled away from him to reach for her handbag. Or tried. He wouldn't let her go. "Thought you wanted to see what I found," she observed dryly.

"Changed my mind," he answered and lowered his head to kiss her.

Rose let herself fall into the kiss, and she fell hard. Her hands ventured under his jumper, seeking skin, delighting in the tremors under her hands as his body responded to her touch. She was lost, completely, when his hand came up and gently cupped her breast, long fingers stroking slowly over her nipple. He had touched her this intimately before, but it had been practically an accident, a light pass in the course of disentangling their bodies from sleep. Now, though, it was deliberate and curious and so very seductive. It set her blood to a slow boil and made her wonder if that shagging against a wall idea she'd had earlier in the week was such a bad one.

He pulled back from her and touched her lip with a cool fingertip. "No, no," he murmured softly. "Not going to give in to that at all, Rose Tyler." He kissed her, light and chaste this time, and then leaned back against the wall, drawing her into a comfortable embrace. He whispered low, dark promises against her hair as he held her. "I'm going to take my time with you, Rose. Shut out the phones and the clocks and the world itself, and its going to be just you and me and what we both want. I'm going to touch you everywhere, taste you everywhere. I want you to touch me, too. I'm going to drive you so high you can smell star light and I'm going to keep you there until the only word you remember is my name."

She stood there and trembled as the words washed over her, as her heart thundered, as her mind simultaneously surrendered to the idea and protested waiting that long. "Not if you keep talkin' like that, you're not," she decided. "You keep talking like that an' I'll have you, right here, an' I don't care who knows." She grinned up at him, then, letting her tongue poke out through her teeth. "Bet you'll scream," she added huskily, and rocked her hips against his, where the press of their bodies together gave obvious indication of how hard this was for him. Literally.

"Minx," he murmured, and caught her hips. "You first."

He might very well have gone through with it, too, at least if the dark, hungry, burning look in his eyes was any indicator, but there was a knock at the door. Joshua pulled away from her and swore, softly and fluently. "What?" he asked, in a voice that turned even that four letter word into, well, a four letter word.

"Maintenance," the voice on the other side of the door replied. "Got a complaint about the lights in there."

"Right," he said. He reached over and took Rose's hand. She snagged her bag and they left the room together, walking around a man with hair the strangest color of yellow Rose had ever seen and an arm full of light bulbs.

Joshua sighed. "Idiots," he muttered.

"Yeah," Rose agreed flippantly. "Dunno if it was smart to piss you off on top of being weird."

He chuckled ruefully. "Good point. I s'pose, though, it's just as well. Not plannin' on bein' interrupted, you know. Remind me to disassemble the doorbuzzer in the flat, will you?"

"It'll end up like the blender, won't it?" she asked cheekily. "C'mon, show me around this place."

He sighed. "Yeah, all right."

Joshua was rather surprised when Zed walked up to him as he was showing Rose the game room, carrying a large basket. "Thought you two might like to take a picnic for supper instead of enduring the dining hall," he said, a bit shyly and animatedly for his usual personality.

Joshua grinned. "Thanks, Zed, this is fantastic."

"I just figured it out," Rose said. "You're Zed Elysian, right?"

Zed nodded gravely. "Yeah," he said. "Well, Alan Ellis, but call me Zed, everyone does."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "You... get better, soon, ok? And thanks, for this."

"Any time," Zed answered and, shooting Joshua a knowing look, turned to wander off with that deliberately morbid manner he usually had.

"You know, that's just so... wrong," Rose said softly.

"What?" Joshua wondered, a bit uncomfortable with her sudden fascination with Zed, if the truth were to be wrung out of him.

"Well, everyone thinks - I mean, everyone on the Estate thinks, anyway - that having money and being able to do whatever you want automatically makes you happy. S'not true, though, is it? I mean, he's not Brittany Spears, but he's got a couple albums out and stuff." She shook her head. "Let's go find a good place to hide, and you can tell me about your video game therapy and I can tell you what I found out on the phone."

"Bein' famous helped him out with one thing, though," Joshua said. "He seems to be good at bribing the techs in the kitchen."

Rose smiled softly as they walked out onto the grounds. "I just think this is all so sad. Not you, I mean. But like Sherry. She'll be back here again in six months, next time she has another breakup with that boyfriend of hers, because there's actually something wrong with her an' even if they fix it, she refuses to keep up the treatment. That, and making the same mistake of going back to that bloke all the time. And Jamal, this place is just a temporary fix for him, isn't it?"

"Sure you're not a doctor?" he asked, echoing the words she'd asked him the first time she came by his flat.

She beamed at him, but didn't seem to realize how serious he was. She just... knew. Understood. She was fantastic and that was just the beginning.

He found a spot near the back hedge where they were reasonably shielded from view by a large decorative plant and spread a table cloth from the top of the basket out on the ground. Rose grinned and threw herself down, then tugged her purse into her lap and began rummaging through it.

"Right," she said, as Joshua settled himself and started pulling out the contents of the basket. "I found out who used to be the maintenance company here, right, an' I called them."

"All right," he agreed, and offered her one of the sandwiches. She shrugged and took it and flipped open the tab on the Coke. "Don't think I'd've ever thought of that."

"Well, the contract came up for bid six months ago, right? I guess they have to say how much they'll work for and stuff?"

"Usually. Like an auction, in reverse."

"Yep," she agreed. "Well, they expected to win because they had in a really low offer. Don't worry, I got this off a gossipy temp so she won't be ratting me out about it, just so you know. Anyway, turns out this other company turns up at the last minute an' just stole things right out from under 'em. And the temp lady said her boss complained the whole time the change over was happenin' - about three months ago - that the new company kept bringin' in all this weird equipment he'd never seen before an' claimin' it would clean things better an' stuff like that. Well, but she said it served Springwood right, because their ratings have been going straight down hill. I guess the place didn't used to be a dump?"

"Probably was still a dump," Joshua observed dryly. "Just with better lighting maybe?"

She laughed. "Think I'll ask Wilson about that, 'cuz it's pretty damn consistent, you know."

Joshua blinked in surprise. It actually was consistent, one light in every bank was almost inevitably out. The only places all the lights always worked were in the offices, like Bill's and Greg's. "I... didn't even notice that. Huh. Clever girl."

"Thanks," she answered, and nibbled reflectively at her sandwich. "Oh, something interesting that temp girl told me, right? The minute they took over the basement, the new team wouldn't let the old one in. She knew that 'cuz they sent the bloke she was dating up here to pick up some equipment they'd forgotten. First time, they wouldn't let him in, denied they'd even seen it. Second time, they sorta chucked it at him. Mind, she said it was a pity they'd missed, but I think she mighta been joking."

"How in the world did you get her to tell you all this?"

"God, long story, the woman could talk for England, Joshua, I swear she could. All I had to do was catch her attention and before you knew it I had her life story."

"That might just be you. I never would have thought of any of this, Rose, and it's important information. Thank you, so much." He opened a packet of crisps and toyed with one of them while he talked.

"You don't think they're dangerous, do you?" she asked, her eyes dark and worried.

"Nah," he assured her, though she didn't look convinced. He ate his crisp, and used his other hand to brush her hair out of her eyes. "Really, Rose. They're just annoying, is all, and I don't like mysteries. Could be - probably is - something simple like this company secretly belongs to the director's kid so it's conflict of interest. Just something like that. Just got a nose for secrets, me, an' curiosity isn't something that's healthy for me - don't seem to be able to control it, most of the time."

She nodded. "All right," she agreed. "Satisfy my curiosity then. Tell me about this "video game" thing."

They shared a quiet meal and a long, wandering conversation, drifting off topic and back onto it, flirting incessantly, driving each other to distraction with simple gestures. There was quite a lot of kissing in there, too. Joshua was very happy about that part, especially, and he was reasonably certain Rose liked it, too.

"But seriously," Son asked, sitting across from Rose in one of the chairs in the common room, "why him?"

Rose shook her head, unable to fight the grin. Joshua had stepped into the loo and she was just going to wait for him here when she'd been descended on by the same crowd she'd met earlier. She couldn't even begin to guess what this was all about, and she doubted she could really answer the question in a way that would make sense to them. He was... Joshua. His eyes, his smile, the way he moved, the way he talked, what he said when he talked... She could go on for days. In fact, if she got started, she might never shut up. There was always something, had been from the minute she met him, even before he'd finally taught Jimmy that a big mouth and a big attitude did not a big man make.

Now, there was so much more, of course. At first, she'd just noticed that he seemed empty and lost and searching. The night she'd finally decided to give up on Jimmy and Jimmy'd decided he wouldn't let her, that had only served to convince her that he was someone worth knowing. Every thing since then, though, that was what made for what she was sure now would be the love of her life. "I wouldn't know where to begin," she said.

"I'm telling you," insisted Sherry, "it's gotta be the smile. That's the only thing that even makes him look human."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Well, he is beautiful when he smiles, yeah," she agreed.

"So is that it, then?" insisted Son.

"Can't be his eyes," Zed said, and shivered. The others winced and nodded.

"Why not? They're gorgeous."

They all looked at her incredulously, except Jamal, who seemed to be only slightly interested in the conversation, as if he'd pretty much decided to come along with the others out of habit more than anything else.

She shrugged. "What do you want me to say?" Rose asked, cheerfully.

"They just want to know why you picked him in the first place," Jamal explained. "Not that we'll understand your answer. Not that you will, either."

That was such a strange way to phrase it, but it sort of made sense to her, so she thanked Jamal politely. "He's right, you know," she added to the others.

"But isn't there anything specific?" Sherry whined.

"Oh, come on, I'd love to tell you, but I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition."

On that cue, Joshua's voice replied with, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Rose started laughing, and jumped from her seat to go to him. She tugged him back to the chair and shoved him down into it, sitting herself happily in his lap where, it felt, she fit perfectly. His arms went around her waist, his chin on her shoulder. "Don't tell them," he whispered in her ear.

She nodded very, very slightly and felt him grin. She changed the subject entirely. "So do you have family visiting tomorrow, Son?"

"My daughter and her husband," he said with a cheerful smile. "Hopefully, they'll bring the children, but I'm not sure."

Sherry's sister was visiting and bringing her dad, too, apparently. Zed had informed his agent that if his mum turned up, he was sending someone to break both of the man's legs, and Jamal had a whole flock of cousins coming to see him, he thought.

They talked for a few more minutes before a bloke called Greg, who was apparently a vicar of some sort turned up. He offered Rose a lift back to her hotel and, better than that, offered to pick her up on his way in in the morning. "It'll be early, though, I hope you don't mind."

Mind? She would get up at half four in the morning again if she had to do to spend more time with Joshua.

They exchanged a lingering kiss goodbye and a few soft words, promises, pleas, she didn't know. What she did know for sure was the last thing he whispered to her before sending her off with Greg. "I'll be thinking about you all night long," he assured her, in that deep, sensual tone.

She wasn't sure if it was a blush or a flush or both as heat went skittering all over her nerve endings to settle in a puddle low in her belly. "Me, too," she whispered back, and then she had to leave him for the night.

She began to hope, with the way she felt his eyes caressing her every line and curve as she walked away, that there would come a time very soon when she'd never have to say goodnight to him from anywhere but in his bed.

The night seemed to drag on and on for Rose. She felt like she woke every twenty minutes, even though she probably hadn't, and when she dragged herself from her rented bed when she gave it up completely, she took a twenty minute shower just to wake up. Downstairs in the lobby, there were danishes as well as coffee, so she indulged in two cups of the bitter brew, checked out of her room, and waited for Greg in front of a telly which seemed stuck on the market reports.

Her second arrival at Springwood was much like the first, except that Greg's presence seemed to cut down on the superfluous questioning. He walked her down to the common room where Joshua was waiting for her, his head bowed over a book.

She thought briefly of just standing to watch him for a moment, but the second she entered the room, he seemed to just sense her presence. As though she stirred something in the very air, his head shot up and then she was in his arms, no apparent passage of time between when he'd seen her and when he snatched her up in a tight embrace. Just like yesterday, he was kissing her in the space of a heart beat and Rose let herself fall into his kiss and into his arms.

She was home.

"So how are your Merry Men today?" Rose teased cheerfully some time later in the morning.

"Merry Men?" Joshua asked and started laughing. "Oh, ya don't realize what you just brought down on yourself, do you?" She looked delightfully confused and bewildered, and he decided he loved that expression as much as all the other ones. He brushed at his face where his eyes had actually started watering from the laughter, and wrapped his arm around her. "C'mon, then, Rose 'Maid Marion' Tyler, an' we'll take a walk through Springwood Forest."

Rose blushed a very fetching pink, which he followed with his eyes until it disappeared under her little red blouse. "I didn't realize you knew my middle name," she blurted.

"Your mum shouts it every time she sees you around me, can't imagine how I'd've missed it." He grinned broadly, knowing there was probably a bounce in his step as they walked out onto the grounds, not caring in the slightest that he probably looked completely besotted. He was, so what was the point in hiding it?

"What's your's then?"

He shrugged. "Haven't got one. Boring, me."

"An' you think being named after a flower isn't boring? Used to hate it when I was a kid but..." She grinned, her tongue poking out through her teeth teasingly. "It's sorta grown on me," she punned outrageously.

Joshua groaned. "Oh, you are so lucky I love you. That was awful."

"You do one, then," she said.

"A pun? No thanks, I'd rather choke. There are planets out there, you know, where that sort of thing had only one punishment."

She snorted and stifled a giggle behind her hand. "And what's that then?"

"They make 'em read War and Peace," he answered dryly. "In the original French."

"No!" she shrieked cheerfully. "No, wait. Isn't War and Peace Russian?"

And they were off on yet another long conversation of obscure history and legends and before long, Joshua found that they had reached the sprawling old tree with the bowed and spreading limbs. "So," said Rose, "is this your tree, then?"

Joshua nodded and turned to smile at her, only to find her hanging from the lowest branch. "Want a leg up?" he offered.

"You just want to touch my legs," she teased, still scrambling to find purchase.

"Well, on that point I have to admit to being guilty," he agreed.

She suddenly stabilized and hoisted herself up, dangling precariously until she found a steady perch. "You coming or not?"

He snagged hold of the branch and lifted himself up on it, settling himself next to her comfortably. "You a champion tree climber or something?" he asked, delighted with her easy grace as she settled in next to him.

"Could ask the same question, but I was in gymnastics when I was little. Got the bronze in my last competition."

He nodded, amused at the mental image of a tiny Rose proudly showing off her medal like a young Olympian. "You've still got it, then," he observed, glancing around them at the grounds below. "I used to climb trees when I was a kid. Used to drive my teacher mad. He'd come looking for me and I'd be up a tree with a book. Never knew if he thought I would break a leg or if he thought I was doing something dangerous."

"Bet you were a terrible prankster."

Joshua felt his ears go pink at this incredibly accurate assessment. "Well, but he was a humorless old vulture, Borusa, we had ta do something. Glued him to his chair, once. Changed all our marks to gold stars, once. Filled his office with packing foam, that sort of thing." He shrugged. "We were bored."

Rose giggled. "I can just imagine you, all eyes, ears, and long legs. S'pose that's how you ended up with that Northern accent?"

"Yeah," he agreed, shrugging, "guess so. Shoulda seen the look on Son's face when I told him I speak Chinese."

"Shocked?" she asked.

"He was trying not to laugh because the accent still sorta comes through. I told him in Mandarin, by way of Manchester."

She laughed happily and leaned into him carefully. "This is nice," she observed, and put a hand on his thigh.

"Oi, now," he protested teasingly. "You not gonna let me touch your legs and then you go an' paw mine."

"Didn't say you couldn't," she teased back. "An' you're the one who said you were guilty."

He looked at her, longing in every fiber of his being to touch a lot more than just her legs. "As sin," he answered darkly, and drew her face up for a kiss.

"You two take all the fun out of teasing you," came a familiar voice from the ground below.

Joshua broke the kiss, looked down, and grinned broadly. "'Lo, John," he called. "Shoulda known you'd turn up."

"Like a bad penny," John answered cheerfully. "C'mon down, your Aunt thinks you're probably starving."

"That woman's tryin' to make me as big as a house," Joshua confided to Rose.

Rose eyed him speculatively. "Well, you have lost weight," she said with a shrug. "But I think you're gorgeous."

He grinned. "And I think you're fantastic," he replied and tapped her nose. "Blind, maybe, but fantastic."

"Gonna get you for that."

"Have ta catch me first," he said and dropped through the tree branches to the ground. Rose scrambled to follow him and he wrapped his arms around her legs as they descended into his reach. "Let go, I've got you."

She did, and he rather enjoyed the way she wiggled and slid slowly down his body. As her hips brushed his, he felt the heady rush of arousal and bit his lip over a moan. She wrapped her legs around his waist, buried her face in his neck and, apparently, found a good spot to nibble.

He had her pinned against the tree before even he could say exactly what happened, his lips over hers, his hands at her waist, aware they were in public, but also aware that they had two weeks of not touching to make up for. He explored her mouth slowly but hungrily, determined to evoke that gasping whimper at least before he let her go.

Of course, there was the audience. "Any time you're ready, then," John said, after clearing his throat.

Joshua pulled away from Rose, reluctantly. He thought about being disappointed until he reached to take her hand. He decided then that he was completely satisfied, at least for now, with the pleasure drunk smile on her face and the slightly unsteady way she wobbled into him before they set off to find his family.

Aunt Doris gave him one of her wonderful hugs, then kissed his cheek and studied his eyes. "You look so much better, Joshua," she said firmly.

"Thanks," he answered and pushed his hand across his hair. "I missed you."

"Missed you too, Joshua. We brought lunch, since you said the grounds were so nice."

"Works for me," he said, and turned to find his uncle beaming at him proudly. "I did good?" he asked.

"Yes, you did," the Brigadier answered. "Very good."

Joshua grinned. "Fantastic!"

He let Rose lead his aunt and uncle to their picnic spot from yesterday and dropped back to say hello to Harry and properly say something to John. Just as they were coming up to join him, he realized they were in the middle of some conversation that was apparently all about upsetting Harry. As usual.

"I'm just asking. Is a tree any different from a wall?"

"Someday, Benton, I'm going to just give up and punch you," Harry replied, his face bright red from whatever that was about.

"My money's on Harry," Joshua decided, and grinned at them both.