Rose
Clara's Choice
Rose didn't know what sort of fish she was eating or where it came from, since she'd only had cod before. And once she had some battered squid rings in a less than memorable trip to Brighton. Her only ever trip to the seaside, before she met the Doctor. Then she seemed to spend an awful lot of time on Bad Wolf Bay and its craggy shoreline.
She ate it anyway, whatever it was. It didn't taste of much, and it wasn't very filling, and there wasn't much there. She could have gone on listing the faults of the frankly pathetic meal she was faced with, but she made the fatal error of looking up. And seeing... What was she seeing?
"What is it?" Clara asked her. Clara was not facing the window, and she could not see what Rose saw, and what Rose saw appeared to be a high speed chase on the Whooshforms. Clara followed Rose's gaze as she gawped. "No way!"
"Is that the Ponds?" Rose almost choked on her practically intangible fish-thing (an impossible feat, even by her standards), seeing Amy, Rory and River at the front of the chase.
"I think so," said Clara.
"Typical," said a bloke sat on the other side of the small venue, "Always causing trouble, that lot."
"Who's 'that lot'?" Clara asked him.
"Women," he grunted in response. Clara was instantly a tenfold more offended by him than Rose was, standing up and looking like she wanted to hit something - probably him. Rose took her friend's anger as an opportunity to escape the vile food.
"Come on, let's just leave it."
"Aye," he sounded Scottish, "go run off to yer husbands and go shoppin'!" What a rubbish insult, Rose thought to herself. But she and Clara had left at exactly the wrong time, for the trio on the Whooshforms had just noticed them. Amy decided it was a good idea to wave at them.
"Hi, Clara! Hi, Rose!" she shouted. Rose did nothing but raise her hand in a lazy attempt at a wave and nod, a shocked smile on her face. To their even greater annoyance, they stopped their Whooshform right outside Fruits of the Sea. "I'm hungry, is the food any good in there?"
"No," Rose said truthfully. She'd thought about lying so they got a tasteless meal, but that would be stupid.
"Rose just didn't like her food. I loved mine, go right in. We've been trying a bunch of the seafood places and this is definitely the best by far. Authentic French cuisine," Clara said.
"I'm going now, so the security don't think we're helping you commit whatever crime you committed," Rose said. The Ponds all went into the restaurant and Rose and Clara bolted, looking for the nearest empty Whooshform or lift to another part of the building. "What did you do?!" she asked Clara once they were away.
"I lied so they got a tasteless meal," she answered. Rose didn't see the point in arguing, so she just shook her head and flashed the psychic paper at the lift queue so they could get away quickly. Thankfully, the lift was closed off so they could figure out how it worked without scrutiny.
"Right, what department?" Rose asked. She didn't even bother trying to read all the names, but she didn't dare hit the lucky dip again, lest they be faced by something even worse than the manky fish food.
"Toys?" Clara suggested first. Rose gave her a look. "What?"
"Missing him already, eh?" she said.
"No. It's been about an hour. And more than that, he's only actually been my husband for five days," said Clara. It took a moment for that to sink in. If their Vegas fiasco had only been five days ago, she'd only been back with Ten for a week.
"Travelling with the Doctor's really exhausting..." said Rose nostalgically.
"Yep," Clara agreed, they both wore the same glazed expression, recounting many adventures in their minds'. Rose snapped out of it soon enough though.
"How about gadgets?" Before Clara could protest, Rose had tapped the screen. They bolted away like a rocket, and Rose was reminded strongly of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the glass elevator that went vertically and horizontally at 200 miles per hour. It wasn't a pleasant experience, that was for sure.
In the gadgets section of the planet, Rose had no clue what half of the devices they came across did. Some of them bleeped tunes and then displayed some strange colour image, projected in front of them (they had a distinctive logo on them, and the logo was placed on a store front full of the strange, three legged things that almost looked like real creatures). But then there were tiny pods that were inserted into various... orifices, to be polite. There was one to alter volume levels outside your ears, another to tell you what smells were what as you explored new places, a tiny pod that was pushed in next to your eye that was like a tour guide for wherever you were.
It wasn't long before they left there, even though Rose thought sticking those robotic ear plugs in Jenny's ears and turning everything to mute would be a good vengeance plan for her public display earlier. Clara disputed this though.
"You're right. We should have lied to her and brought some tasteless fish back in a doggy bag," Rose had snapped. She'd thought muting Jenny was a good idea. She even tried to revive her plan upon seeing pills you swallow to stop you speaking for a certain length of time, though why anyone would buy those for themselves Rose didn't know.
It was Clara's turn then, and next on the agenda was jewelry. Rose admitted, she hadn't been too thrilled about that, but they'd had some awfully pretty bracelets in the shop windows. With her unlimited credits, she finally caved and bought some presents for Jackie. Why shouldn't she? Insanely valuable jewelry, and she could afford the lot thanks to the Doctor. She did owe her mother and apology for whizzing off like that, after all.
But when Rose had been rearranging the contents of her bag and not paying attention as she left the shop, she walked smack into Clara, who was fixated on something.
"You can't just stop in doorways!" she protested, but Clara wasn't listening. Rose gave in and looked where Clara was looking, at some big device thing that sorta looked like a printer but obviously wasn't. "What is it?"
"It removes solot rings," she said, sparing a glance for her hand, which was raised in front of her.
"So?" Rose asked, ignoring the light flecked off the shiny, five day old wedding ring. "Just come on." She tried to pull Clara, but she wouldn't budge. Rose sighed. "What? You can get a new one cut if it's the wrong size or-"
"It's the right size," she said, shakily.
"No!" said Rose, finally realising what Clara was thinking of doing. Cut off the ring!? That would crush Eleven, he'd never be the same if Clara did that. And for no reason, too. On a spur-of-the-moment thing, completely impulsive. Plus, they weren't having any problems. They were getting along fine, more than fine! Perfect! Rose wasn't going to let Clara throw all that away. "You can't remove the ring!"
"Why? Why can't I?" she said. She was talking rubbish, and she knew it.
"Because you and the Eleventh Doctor, you're meant to be!" Rose argued. She suddenly appeared to care a lot for the relationship of her quarter-husband and Clara, which she found odd. But she hadn't really had a proper friend since meeting the Doctor. She had him, and there was Jack and Mickey on occassion. Her mother was one of her best friends, though they disagreed a lot. She didn't want Clara doing anything stupid.
"You sound like it's written in the stars," said Clara.
"He would write it in the stars if you asked," Rose said.
"But he wouldn't say it," said Clara grimly. Rose was still trying to steer her away from the solot ring cutter, but it was fruitless.
"Say what?"
"Say he loves me," she said. The conversation had gotten too deep too fast, and it hit Rose like a punch in the face.
"Well... Have you said it?" she asked, trying to play counselor.
"No," said Clara, but she seemed to snap out of her strange trance-like state.
"Then stop bloody complaining! Come on, let's go to the mobile section and see if there's anything there we can understand," Rose succeeded in dragging Clara away.
