He does indeed buy her a drink, though straight up vodka was not what he imagined her drinking.
But, lo and behold, she tosses it back like it's water and places the glass firmly on the table, grinning. He stares, and suddenly remembers how very bad this would look to someone who didn't know the context; on that line of thought, it would look worse if he appeared to be talking to empty air.
As if she read his mind—which he wouldn't put beyond her, come to think of it—her grin softens into a pleasant smile, and she says, "Yes, Inspector, I'm really here and you're not crazy. Anyone looks over, it'll look like us two having a nice chat over drinks and some fish and chips."
Fish and—? Oh. Yes. It does seem that, somehow, she'd managed to acquire a meal without him noticing her ordering or the food arriving. His stomach chooses that moment to growl rather loudly; he'd forgotten how hungry he is, and now he remembers that he missed lunch.
She gives him a cheeky grin. "Hungry, Inspector? If you agree to listen to me, I'll share."
He's not sure what possessed him to do so, but he nods, and she pushes the dish closer, and while he munches on a chip, she talks.
She starts with the line, "My name is Rose Tyler, I was at Canary Wharf, and that was the day I died." and it all goes from there.
She spins him a story of a young, London-born-and-bred shop girl who left school at sixteen to follow a boy, which left her with a broken heart and no A-Levels, living with her mum in the same flat she'd spent her whole life, dating her best friend and knowing they really didn't have a future together but unable to break his heart.
She tells him about the wonderful, manic, haunted alien-who-looks-human-but-really-we-look-Time-Lord who saved her from the living plastic Autons and swept her off in his wonderful timeship—TARDIS, that's Time and Relative Dimensions In Space, thank you very much. She tells him about leather jackets and the end of the world, dancing and a Captain Jack Harkness from the 51st century who saved her life in the London Blitz and managed to make a place for himself in their strange world, and aliens in 10 Downing Street and a rift in Cardiff.
There's a man who can change his face, and she loves him and keeps losing him, and she hopes that someday, somehow she'll find her way back to him. In the meantime, she's a hero, defending the Earth from aliens and preternatural threats as an operative of Torchwood.
"You look like him, you know, so much that it makes my heart hurt, but don't make that face, I know you're not him, he has better taste in clothes and knows how to tell a joke."
It's a story of space and time, war and peace, dying suns and aliens and the words Bad Wolf following her everywhere she goes. It's a story of love and action and families—blood and otherwise, a white wall between dimensions, and an aptly named beach in Norway.
She tells him the story of Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, and how a shop girl became a hero.
He doesn't know how long they sat there, but by the time she's done, the last of the daylight has vanished from the sky and all the chips are gone.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" she asks when she's finished, pointedly avoiding his eyes by finding her wine extremely interesting.
He isn't sure what to say, exactly, because it does sound crazy, but then, he decides, a lot of things seemed crazy lately. Aliens are as good an explanation as any.
"I think something is all this is crazy," he says, finally. "I just hope it isn't me."
oOoOoOo
I think I might end it there... What do you think?
Hope you enjoy, please review and let me know. Since it's un-beta'd, please let me know if you see any errors.
~Nagi