LA Devotee

Rose

If Rose Tyler and Clara Oswald were anything, they were two sides of the same coin. And really, Rose had either not noticed it or merely strived not to think about it until the events of that night transpired, when she had returned from her outing with the Tenth Doctor in a blind rage. To think, things had been all well and good that day up until the episode with the sandworm was over, then they'd all gone down the drain. He hadn't been happy with her at all for immediately storming off upon their return to the TARDIS, but she thought that was far better than the alternative of her biting his head off. Perhaps literally.

All she wanted was a friend, was some advice, and usually her first port of call would be Captain Jack. But Captain Jack was, of course, vanished. Gone elsewhere, MIA, it didn't matter. All that mattered was he was not present. And Donna, the second person she would go to for some sort of comfort, had chosen that night to pay a visit to Shaun, she got on the good authority of Jenny. Martha was having a nap; she didn't fancy talking to Amy. So who did that leave? It left who was, she realised in retrospect, possibly the best woman for the job: it was, of course, Clara. Because what was Clara aside from the only person who matched her in supernatural power, in significance to the Doctor, and in her choice of spouse exactly?

So she braced herself and knocked on Clara's door, through which she could hear the Spice Girls' Wannabe emanating quite abrasively. She really hoped that Clara and Eleven weren't doing it to that song. It was a terrible song choice for that kind of business. Then again, nobody ever usually heard music coming from their room. When the door was opened, it was only Clara there, in pyjamas; looked as though she had spent the day lounging around in bed. Probably had. There was a lollipop in her mouth, which she removed and held in her hand upon seeing Rose; it was strawberry-flavour. Clara was speechless.

"Why are you listening to the Spice Girls?" she asked.

"I'm very under the weather," Clara answered mechanically, "I might be coming down with summat." Rose frowned.

"Where's the Doctor?"

"Gone to dinner with his mates."

"Oh."

"'Oh' what?"

"You're skiving, aren't you?"

"I'll have you know I'm incredibly ill."

"Because you definitely look ill – I bet you were dancing to it before I opened the door."

"Do you imagine me dancing a lot?" Clara asked in a sultry tone of voice Rose did not at all appreciate. It wasn't really so loud, she supposed, it just sounded that way from outside. Echoed unusually. Regardless, Clara waved a hand to telekinetically switch it off, then crossed her arms. "Are you gonna dob me in? Craig and Sophie don't like me. I'm doing everyone a favour by hanging out here on my own." Rose wouldn't argue with that.

"Can I talk to you?" Rose asked, then added, "It's personal." Clara was so confused she just let Rose right in, though Rose had been about to walk in anyway. Clara offered her a lollipop from a large plastic tub of them which sat on the coffee table. The room was untidy but not grossly so, just a few stray shreds of clothing and dirty mugs in unusually places. Half a dozen books lying around. "Why have you got all these?"

"Doctor give us'm," she shrugged, "He reckons they'll help me quit smoking."

"You're trying to quit?"

"No, not really. What's the matter?" Clara said, Rose taking a lollipop, an orange one.

"…I had a fight. With the Doctor."

"Oh. Can't you talk to Jack?"

"He's missing."

"Donna?"

"She's visiting her husband."

"…Martha?"

"Having a nap."

"Amy?"

"I'd rather talk to you."

"That's a surprise."

"It's about being married to him."

"Then River Song?"

"I wouldn't come and talk to you if I didn't think it was something you're the best person to help with it. And I know there's not really any reason you should help me, being as I… we… you know. That stuff. But I… I'm really at a loss, alright, Clara? I just think he's… too overprotective, and he thinks all these things about my powers, and the time vortex, and it's like he thinks I belong to him now just because of this ring," she brandished her finger, pacing up and down in Clara's room, at a real loss as to why Clara – who now crossed her arms and seemed to be genuinely listening – didn't just kick her out, "I don't know how to make him listen! I don't know how to be married to him if he's like this, or what to expect, but you've already done it all, haven't you? And Thirteen's proof that whatever you do works, so-"

"Stop right there," said Clara, getting a mischievous look about her Rose was entirely suspicious of, "When was the last time you got drunk? As in, properly drunk?" Rose strained to remember.

"I don't know. Suppose it was when we all got stuck in the haunted lodge," she said.

"Well that was nearing on two months ago. You need a drink, a lot to drink."

"What? You have alcohol in here?"

"Not here. I mean, yes I do have alcohol hidden here, but I've got a way better idea. All it requires is my vintage cigarette holder and two cocktail dresses. Just you wait. I know just the time and place…."

And as it turned out, Clara Oswald most certainly did know the time and the place. It was 1955 when they, teleported by Rose rather than risking getting caught by taking the TARDIS itself, emerged into a hailstorm out in Beverley Hills. Clara gave Rose a brief account of a mysterious and cryptic phone call Eleven had received that morning; when questioned about it, he said it was nothing more than an invite to a 'silly party' where they would find nothing more than 'heartbreak, drugs and the dark-side of Hollywood.' That was all it took to convince Clara that it was an event not to be missed-

"And at Dean Martin's house! I didn't know he knew Dean Martin," she was saying, "There might be so many socialites and famous people there! Real celebrities, from the beginning of celebrity culture. Rudolph Valentino used to live round here." Rose did not know who that was. She barely knew who Dean Martin was. But she did know that she was beginning to have a lot of faith in Clara's plan for them to go out and drink their troubles away. Well, Rose's troubles away. Rose didn't know if Clara had any troubles, apart from her troubling infatuation with alcohol and cigarettes. She was smoking already, with this 'vintage cigarette holder' of hers.

"Do you know where the house is?"

"Nah, we'll just follow the limos, see?" Clara pointed one out. It was true, three limousines had snaked past them through the hailstorm already. They were having to talk loudly to be heard over the racket of the foul weather, but Rose, after spending the day first in the desert and then in space, had genuinely missed the inconvenience of bad weather. Clara kept the worst of it at bay telekinetically, though.

"Is all this just an excuse because you wanna get drunk? You don't even like me," Rose said as they went after the limos and the taxi-cabs hoping to reach their promised destination of a big melting pot of 1950s film stars and liquor.

"You're the one who doesn't like me," Clara said. She seemed very dead-set on her goal of getting shitfaced. "And if you didn't want to get drunk you wouldn't have come out. I don't think we've entirely been taking advantage of the ability to time travel."

"Taking advantage of it is exactly what the Doctor doesn't want."

"Stop thinking about what he wants," Clara said as they wended over the shiny sidewalk, the limousines drifting forwards slowly into the haze of the rainstorm, "C'mon, Rose, haven't you ever heard of feminism?" Rose scowled. "I think it's this one." She pointed out a house on their left, though 'house' was hardly a proper word. The limos were queueing outside, people getting out of them in tuxedos and evening gowns with umbrellas and bottles of fancy drink and going through the open gates of the mansion driveway to approach. "Even if it isn't, there's still a party."

"So we're gate-crashing."

"You grew up in a London council flat and you've never gate-crashed a party?" Clara toyed.

"Not since I was nineteen."

"Come on," Clara said, taking Rose's hand and phasing them through the large black fence that surrounded the enormous estate, so as to avoid the scrutiny of the other guests. In the centre of the drive there was a fountain. Once a pipe had burst in the downstairs lobby of their block of the Powell Estate, and Jackie had called that a fountain. It was a borderline insulting comparison – insulting to who, she did not know.

"God, I'm nearly convinced that you actually know what you're doing," Rose remarked, removing her hand from Clara's as soon as she didn't have her foot sticking through a big metal fence.

"We'll sneak in the back."

"Snuck into a lot of parties, have you?"

"You have to sneak into them when everyone stops inviting you."

"You'd think you'd get the hint and just not show up."

"Not show up somewhere with free booze? Seventeen-year-old me wouldn't hear of it," Clara said, "Everybody hated me by the time I went to university, all my friends."

"Did they?" Rose asked as they crept across the muddy front lawn, hidden by the shadows of the night-sky and the large trees, feeling a twinge of guilt. Did Clara really not have that many friends? The only people she spent much time with were her sister and her husband. "Why?"

"Oh, I… slept with… most of them… your friends aren't generally keen when you do stuff like that," she said, "At least, mine weren't. But I don't sleep around anymore. Check out the swimming pool! Isn't this a dream?"

"We've got a swimming pool on the TARDIS," Rose pointed out. They were half-hidden in the green undergrowth of the bushes now at the back of the large mansion, out of view of the guests who were lounging around by the pool and already getting rowdy. Clara's eyes lit up at the sight of all these tipsy, golden socialites. Rain bounced off the surface of the pool, most of the people gathered underneath the awning and the back-porch. As they walked out of the thicket, they went more or less completely unnoticed. They slipped right in through the back door, into the warm arms of Dean Martin's luxurious hospitality.

It took Clara all of fifteen seconds to locate the bar – what kind of guy had a bar in his house? – and procure for them on the sly two glasses of tequila. The last time Rose and Clara had both been drinking tequila, they'd had a fight. Clara pushed the glass into her hand and ordered her to down the whole thing on the count of three. She was right about one thing, Rose had gate-crashed a lot of working class flat-parties, where they had vodka that might as well have been petrol. She could match Clara step-for-step when it came to drinking to deadly excess. And suddenly, within five minutes, she didn't care anymore about the fact they hadn't been invited, or about the recklessness of their behaviour.

"It looks almost as tasty as you do," Clara said smoothly to the barman, who was flipping cocktail shakers around and wearing an all-white tuxedo.

"Alright, one glass," he said. Rose had been distracted for just long enough to be out of it while Clara flirted with the barman to get them free drinks.

"What kinda bloke with this sort of cash doesn't put on a free bar?" Rose joined Clara, leaning on the bar. Everything she could see was glittering; the house of Dean Martin was living and breathing.

"The man of the house's closest friends can usually afford it," said the barman, flashing them both a smile and sliding two martinis towards them. Clara eyed him while she sucked the olive off the end of the cocktail stick, and then Rose elbowed her a little too hard and sent her sprawling onto the floor. Then she burst out laughing while chewing on her own olive.

"The closest I've been to coming to a party this fancy was in the parallel world, for my parallel mother's fortieth," Rose said when she helped Clara – who laughed as well, despite her now-spilled martini – back to her feet, "And then he made us pretend to be hired staff. I had to give out whores… ors… durve…"

"Hors d'oeuvres," Clara said, grinning. Rose sipped her martini and decided it wasn't very nice, so Clara gladly took it off her while Rose went and distracted the older man at the side of her by smiling at him very sweetly and taking his glass of scotch on the rocks out from under his nose. She blew him a kiss as she turned back to Clara. Maybe she had under-estimated the strength of the tequila they had begun with… "I told you this was a good idea!"

"I'm just so sick of him," Rose complained, gulping too much of the scotch at once and cringing.

"Where'd my glass go?" the man behind her grunted, and Clara grabbed her by the elbow and pulled them away through the crowds.

"Who needs money," she muttered, picking up a full champagne flute from a table right as a woman put it down to check the time on a wristwatch. She downed it in one and returned the glass to where it had been; the woman picked it up and grew very confused about where the champers had gone, and Clara and Rose guffawed as they slid out of that room and into another. "Sick've 'im 'ow?" Clara asked.

"He thinks he owns me! Like I'm… cos of this ring," she waved her hand in Clara's face to show the engagement ring, "And he thinks I'm in danger."

"Tha's men for you. I'll tell you, if all've you straight girls understood what it's like on the other end, you wouldn't be half so insecure," she said, "He's jus' worried about you."

"He can stop."

"You've got to be untamed, til he stops," Clara advised her, showing Rose her left arm with its enormous burn from Esther Drummond's electricity on it, "I've got me own stuff, y'know? Echoes and tha'. Oh wow, what're you drinking?" she grew side-tracked and addressed some random woman. The woman told Clara exactly what she was drinking and Clara smiled and nodded, but Rose didn't hear a word. Then, sultrily, she asked if she could have a taste. Remarkably the woman allowed this. "God, that's strong – isn't this strong, Rose?" Clara passed the glass of dark liquid to Rose, who tried it and agreed that it was most certainly strong. She did not know what it was.

As they slid away Clara lit another cigarette, the house full of tobacco and smoke. Rose rather fancied asking if she could have one, but thought she could get enough of it second-hand on the air. God, she was drunk already.

"I can't go back like this," Rose said.

"Yes, yes, yes – you've got to be properly wankered," Clara told her, "Pass-out-drunk. That's the tactic. Otherwise you're just gonna scream at'm. Let's go find the wine cellar."

"Aren't you gonna look for the host-guy?"

"I'm gonna look for the wine cellar. What's a locked door to us?" she jibed, and Rose thought that was hilarious and very much agreed with this plan to find the wine cellar and the basement. They drifted through the huge house and the throngs of people, going unnoticed and ignored, and the rain outside persisted. It left them in the sticky warmth with dampness on the air along with the smells of people and liquor, and Rose wondered if this was what it was like for people inside snow-globes.

"How'd you do it?" Rose asked.

"Do what?"

"Y'know – domesticate him. And there's not just him, there's Thirteen! She's devoted to you!"

"Is, um, equi-devotion," Clara said, "You've gotta exercise your power as woman. If I wa' with a girl she can't really do owt to make me think less've her, she might's well be made a moonlight and sparkles."

"You're drunk."

"Shht, which door d'you think it is?" she asked, and Rose didn't reply. They were wandering through all the rooms of the downstairs and trying all the doors, but they just led into more hallways and parlours and dining rooms and circled them back to the bar; all around them people were laughing and drinking and dancing and amusing themselves to the caramel-voice crooning across the gramophone or the radio or even, possibly, reality, and Rose swiped a ten-dollar bill from somebody's pocket and procured for them from behind the bar an entire bottle of whiskey to go with the glasses and flutes they kept taking from as they went. Clara ran her hands along the walls as though looking for secret passageways.

"He doesn't trust me to be sensible with my powers," Rose said.

"Wha'?" Clara asked, "You're slurring."

"Since when!?" Rose exclaimed. Clara shrugged. She didn't feel like she as slurring. "I'm sensible."

"Of course! We're very sen-ible," Clara nodded knowingly, swigging some whiskey out of a stolen glass. They were stealing a lot. The Doctor's influence, presumably. Stealing was a victimless crime, she suddenly found herself thinking. Who cared? "I hav'n had hardly nuthin to drunk."

"Who are you two girls? You're causing a stir," somebody interjected. Rose thought they were being very subtle. One of Clara's hands she was using to pull books out of a shelf while she searched for the secret cellar door, the other had a glass with shreds of whiskey and some other beverage milling about in the base of it. Rose clung to the whole bottle.

"We're invited," Rose said, "Who's you?"

"Me?" the man she was speaking to asked. She could not focus on his face. Was he pretty and handsome? She couldn't tell.

"Has anyone ever said how nice your teeth are?" she asked him.

"This is my party," he said.

"You're friends with my husband!" Clara exclaimed. This must be Dean Martin himself. He was dressed very sharply. Rose giggled and drank more of the warming whiskey. "You rung him up special, he didn't wanna come. I'm his wife."

"His wife," Rose repeated, nodding, trying to be professional. She wobbled in the air and fell right into Dean Martin.

"Whose wife…?" he asked suspiciously, having to support Rose, "How did you get in? My guy at the gate hasn't seen you."

"The Doctor," Clara said.

"The Doctor," Rose repeated again, "I know 'im too. Good mates, we are."

"Then where is he?" Dean Martin asked.

"Issat you singing on the box?" Rose asked, pointing at a phonograph.

"He dunt like drinking," Clara said, "We came instead – don't wanna insult your 'ospi'ali'y."

"You're northern," Rose told her. She fake-gasped and nearly fell over. "Careful've…" she waved a hand at Clara's glass, which was actually empty. Spotting this, Clara held the glass out to Rose, who went to pour a glass.

"Let me do that," Dean Martin said, taking the bottle off Rose – who was still leaning on him – and pouring the glass himself. Clara winked. "The Doctor's wife?"

"Shh, though, doesn't know am out," Clara tried to whisper. "Am not that gone really, though. Been looking for your wine. How long've we been here?"

"I've been hearing complaints for at least an hour," he said, though he seemed good-humoured about it, and jovial, "Two English broads wandering around swiping everybody's liquor. 'Friends of the Doctor' without invitations."

"We're just as good's t'Doctor!" Clara protested, "Anything he can so's can we."

"Yeah," Rose said, then she hiccupped.

"Someone said you stole ten dollars from them," he pointed out.

"I wouldn't never!" Clara exclaimed. Rose shook her head very vigorously, and then still couldn't stand up, "Look, look, mate – am not as think as you drunk I am, right? I'm so… so-ber I can play t'piano! See!" Clara pushed her glass into Rose's hand and dropped right onto the bench of a very large, white grand piano sitting right there, "Looks, it's one've yours…." Rose was stunned by what she saw next, mainly because whatever Clara was playing, she actually seemed to manage it.

"You girls are too drunk, I'm glad you've had a good time, but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave," Dean Martin said while Clara trilled on the piano quite expertly. Was it Blue Moon? At that sentence, and Rose pushing Dean Martin away from her aggressively (he fell into his bouncer), Clara slammed her forearms down onto the keys of the piano.

"I aren't drunk!" she shouted.

"Nah, I'm fine," Rose said, swaying, trying to pull the bottle of whiskey towards her lips again and missing.

"Give me that," Dean Martin tried to take it. She pulled it out of his grasp and accidentally shattered the whole neck. He gawked.

"Look what you've done!" Rose exclaimed. They were making a scene. They had probably been making a scene for quite some time.

"Oi, oi, oi," Clara called over. "Rose'll know it – this's one I-" burp "-learn from Mercury hissen." When she played it and began to sing (very poorly), Rose immediately knew it.

"Oh my goshhh I love thisong!" she slurred.

"Tonight I'm gonna have myself, a real good time-"

Rose joined with, "I feel ali-hi-hi-hive."

Together, "And the wooorld is turning inside out, yeah, I'm floating around in ecstasyyy so don't. Stop. Me. Now… Cause I'm havin' a good time, havin' a good time, I'm a shooting star-"

"I'm calling the police!" Dean Martin shouted. Clara stopped immediately.

"Not the cops," Rose said.

"The feds," Clara added. They exchanged a look with each other and bit their lips. "Let's skedaddle."

"Who ses skeddale?"

"You're gonna have to stay here," Dean Martin said, "I don't take drunk, disorderly behaviour lightly, especially not when you're stealing from my guests."

"I'll tell you for fucking what, mate," Clara began, causing gasps around the room. She could barely stand up. She downed the last of the whiskey in her glass and returned to Rose's side, "Frank Sinatra would never turn us out for nicking cash from his bourgeois bloody mates."

"He'd let us stay, innit," Rose agreed.

"Somebody get the phone and call the cops," Dean Martin called through the room, then to his bouncer, "Stop these two."

"Shit! Run!" Clara shouted, and run they did, Rose pushing the bouncer over with brute force. Then people were on them as the bouncer-guy and Dean Martin told them they definitely had to stop running around through his house; in Rose's head all she could hear was the guitar solo from Don't Stop Me Now playing on a loop, with people yelling at them from all angles. She ran into a wall and broke off a bit of the doorframe with the palm of her hand.

"Get them!" someone yelled.

"This way," Clara said, grabbing Rose's arm. They ran down a corridor and into a room and Clara veered to a sudden halt, face to face with a very pretty girl who was laughing and spectating. "Hey," Clara said smoothly, pausing briefly to lean on the wall by her side, "Are you here all alone? What's your name?" she asked with a toothy grin.

"I'm Betty," answered the girl, smiling right back at Clara, "What about you?"

"I'm-"

"She's married," Rose cut in.

"Married? That's a boring name. Fancy changing it?" she smirked. Rose rolled her eyes.

Clara opened her mouth to speak but the pursuit was back on, men rushing around the corner at the far end of the richly decorated hallway. Rose grabbed Clara and forced her away.

"Gotta go!" Clara shouted. The girl mouthed something and made a mime with her hands like a telephone, indicating that Clara should call her, and Clara gave a thumbs-up in return. Rose wrenched her through the backdoor they had originally come through.

"We've gotta leave," she hissed.

"Look out!"

Rose did not look out. In the rainstorm, they went crashing into the icy swimming pool in the back garden. Rose teleported them away in the blink of an eye, kind of amazed at her ability to do so when she was, quite clearly, a right mess. They fell out of the water and into a street elsewhere; Hollywood Boulevard, she realised upon seeing the stars in the concrete underneath their feet. They were both soaking wet and could not stop laughing.

"Good start," Clara said.

"Start!" Rose exclaimed.

"Start, aye," she nodded, "C'mon, you've gotta get properly wasted, can't stand up. And you've gotta forgive'm for worrying. Talk to him. Men hafta learn, and that."

"M'sorry about hating you, Clara."

"Everyone does," she shrugged, then frowned, "I think I'm alright sometimes though."

"Alright sometimes," Rose nodded. "Jenny ses you have layers of annoyance."

"A round on Jenny, then. C'mon. Let's find us a nightclub, one've them'uns with the girls all dancing."

"Oh, bloody christ."

The Eleventh Doctor had returned much later from Craig and Sophie's, and had been startled to find the bedroom empty without so much as a note, Clara's phone left behind, and nobody able to tell him of her whereabouts. Understandably, it threw him into quite a state.

The Tenth Doctor had, upon arrival from the space station with the time machine, stormed off to go 'for a walk.' He had expected to find Rose waiting for him in their room, waiting to yell at him for his behaviour, but found no such thing.

So now, both of them were hanging about in moody, brooding silence in the console room. When the two women they individually sought returned, together, arm-in-arm and laughing and stinking of spirits and tobacco, they were surprised. To say the least. And not just because Rose Tyler and Clara Oswald had an infamous feud and a very impassioned dislike of one another. Rose was brandishing some anonymous bottle of yuck in a brown paper bag, and they were both wearing frankly ridiculous hats and feather-boas to match their rather fancy cocktail dresses.

"Where have you been!?" Eleven exclaimed.

"Swee'ar'!" Clara yelled, and went to throw her arms around him. She tripped and he had to catch you, "Wev 'ad such fun." Rose was in a fit of laughter on her own.

"Have you two been drinking!?" Ten demanded.

"I was jus' upset," Rose said, then yawned, "But now I'm jus' tired."

"We went to a cabaret," Clara said, then hummed some music she must have heard while they were out, "And a store and all over t'place."

"…Yes… well…" Eleven cleared his throat, "Do you think it's time for bed now?"

"Bye, Rose!" Clara waved while her husband led her away. Then she slur-whispered, "Are us gonna do it?"

"No, darling. If it wasn't for the plain fact that that would be illegal, well, I don't even think you'll manage to get your clothes off."

"I'll show yous what a quickie is…" the door closed behind them, and left Ten and Rose alone.

"…I'm sorry."

Rose smiled, "Is alright. She ses if I dint get so drunk I'd've screamed at you, so is good really." She yawned, very much dead on her feet. "Good night. Met whatshisface, Dean Martin, innit. Kick us out've his house…"

"You can tell me all about it in the morning."

"I still love you."

"And I've never stopped loving you. Now, why don't we just… follow their lead and go to bed, maybe?"

AN: Originally this chapter was literally just going to be a heart-to-heart between Rose and Donna, and then Rose and Clara, and then it turned into them getting incredibly drunk together. And I had her go to Clara because I did, once, have an entire bonding storyline planned for those two where they could settle their differences. But the other way for people to bond, apart from experiencing a traumatic event together, is (of course) getting completely pissed. Plus, I wanted to go out with a bang, since I've got to go on my usual exam hiatus from now until May 20th. BUT I'm gonna try my darndest to write at least one chapter of Jenny Who?, so don't think of me as having completely vanished for the next 28 days.