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“That,” he scowled, eyes scrunched closed and tongue sticking out as he slammed the empty glass on the table, “is bloody awful.”
She chuckled, her face in a similar sour expression. “In’t it just? They named it “the Sally-Langy”, after the year above brought Sally Langman - oh my God, Sally Langman! What a legend! Anyway, they brings her here to the pub, yeah, first time anyone’s ever seen her out. She was a great laugh, proper mad, but she never came out with the gang. So this one night, think it was like, after the mocks or somethin’, she comes out and apparently starts doin’ the worm on the floor. No-one knows why, but they all shrug, cos it's Sally Langman, in’t it? Anyway, long story short: the police are called, Liam gets slapped with an ASBO, Sally Langman's giving a statement, she calls Josh Parker - who ended up getting suspended - and she asks him to get her a drink 'cos she'll be on her way back soon. He asks "what d'you want?" And she's just like "anything", right. So the bartender, Jamie - all hail the creator of the Sally-Langy! - just starts whacking in any old drink and calls it the Sally-Langy. Literally, 'cos it was so mad and the whole night just didn't make sense so neither did the drink. But then it became like this like Jordan Road tradition, to all have a Sally-Langy whenever you come 'ere. Sally Langman works in Newcastle now, think she's a vet or somethin'. Nobody has a full account of that night though, we all just piece it together and it's become like this urban legend. The Mystery of the Night Sally Langman Did the Worm. Fun fact: she was banished from the town! From the borough of Southwark! I shit you not, they banned her for 48 hours that night. And the best bit - oh, GOD so funny - is she weren't allowed in school to sit the English language exam! So Sally Langy missed the English langy exam! It was honestly mental."
“God, you don’t half go full Londoner when you’ve had a drink.”
“Oi! I am a Londoner, thank you very much.” She held her head high in pride and he chuckled, bowing his head at her lifelong achievement. “Besides, I’m perfectly sober. Ish.”
“Mmm,” he agreed into his pint glass as he finished the rest of it. “I’ll give you that, you’re managing those heels a lot better than I thought you would by now.”
“I’m sitting down.”
“My point stands.”
Their eyes widened at his unintended pun and they both pointed at him in a moment of pleasant surprise before descending into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.
“Right," she said eventually. “Onion rings: one or two?”
“Two, definitely two.” He waved his hand assertively and she nodded, reaching for her purse. He picked up their glasses. “Na, I’ll get them. You stay here, what number are we?”
She scanned the corners of the table. “37.”
“37, right.” He swung himself around and slid off the barstool, making his way for the bar. It was busy, although not overly so for a Friday night, and he considered it might be better sending Rose after all: they’d get served quicker, that’s for sure. He shook his head, ashamed he’d even joked about it to himself. But that dress she was wearing, the new patches of her skin he’d been exposed to tonight that he had no business eyeing were catching a lot of people’s attention. He wasn’t used to this; whatever human traits and desires he’d picked up from her when he regenerated seemed to have erred on the side of physical incentive which was highly inconvenient considering he lived with Rose Tyler. And they only seemed to be getting worse with time; when she’d stepped into the control room the other morning in that pink dress she looked ridiculous, but gorgeous. His favourite combination of Rose.
It took him a few minutes to get served. “Two lots of onion rings, I’ll have another… no actually, I’ll have a soda and lime, and another spiced rum and Coke.” He patted his pockets, pulling out a 20. “Actually, and a bowl of chips, too.” He chuckled, glancing over at Rose. Who had, much to his dismay but not overly to his surprise, attracted a far too pretty man to the table. Rose seemed to be acting politely enough that the only discomfort he had was from jealousy, he realised. Which made him quite the twat, because he didn’t have the right to be jealous: he won’t let himself be with her, but he also doesn’t want her to be with anyone else.
Still, it was somewhat self-indulgent to be irked by this lad.
He stuffed his change into his pocket and grabbed the two drinks. Judging by the way Rose and this man were looking at each other, the Doctor guessed they knew each other. Rose always said she missed her friends and some of the things they used to get up to, like a night out with Shareen - who apparently is pregnant now? Or maybe that was somebody else? No, that’s right - Shareen was the one who got a cat - and so he left her to it. He had to remember that she was his life, not the other way round. He scanned the room for anything that might look suspicious, any form of trouble that he might be able to get sucked in to, but other than the lad looking like he was about to be sick on his date, or the group of men playing cards with a table so full of empty glasses it was a somewhat fascinating physical and logistical enigma, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He turned back to the bar, leaning over to look at the snacks before remembering he’d just ordered 2 lots of onion rings and chips. He grumbled, turning back round to look for something to do. Which, as it turned out, was not a lot when Rose wasn’t involved.
He spotted a woman, mid-twenties perhaps, sat a few seats down at the bar, grinning at him. The kind of grin the Doctor had seen Rose flash him before. He knew what that grin meant. He gave her a tight smile, as friendly but as firm as he could make it. And by the look she gave him, and the fact that she gathered her bag on her lap and leapt off the barstool, he realised that smile he had given was an invitation. It was a gamble he took; in trying to be someone Rose might fancy, he’d accidentally become exactly that for many other people too. He groaned internally at the impending sense of humiliation and avoidance, trying to get out of an obvious and uncomfortable attempt at flirting by this woman - who was probably very lovely, but not… well, let’s be honest - Rose.
Can’t wait at the bar, then. He pulled himself away, averting the woman’s gaze and heading back over to Rose. He could grit and bear being around one of Rose’s male friends, and if he could have been pleasant with Mickey then this seemed like a walk in the park. Oh, Mickey. He sort of missed him. Well, that’s not fair: he did really miss him.
As he got closer, he noticed Rose looked a little… uncomfortable. She knew this man, he was sure; her brow was furrowed and her arms crossed in a way you could only really present to somebody you knew, but she looked a little too sad to be angry. The lad was leaning in on her a little too closely, a smarmy smile on his face. Whatever was happening, it looked too intense to be a casual conversation between acquaintances.
Now, Rose was a capable woman at the very least. Not only had she fought Daleks and werewolves and even ghosts, but she knew when she was being treated unfairly and she could very well hold her ground. Perhaps even more than he could; it was one of the reasons he tried extra hard to not piss her off. He could quite easily leave her alone now and be reassured that she could take care of herself. But he didn’t want to.
He settled the glasses down at their table and Rose jumped. “Doctor!”
“Everything alright?”
“Um, yeah, fine,” she flustered, and he heard her nerves. “Oh, um, Jimmy, this is … er John, and John this is Jimmy.”
Jonh-Jim, Jim-John. Jimmy John. Jimmy. Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy. Jimmy jams. Stop it. He held out his hand and Jimmy took it, a weak handshake from somebody clearly not in the business sector. Bitter jealousy isn’t a good colour on you, he scolded himself. “Nice to meet you.”
Jimmy’s hand lingered for a second too long, and his eyes flickered between Rose and the Doctor.
Jimmy? Jimmy. Why does Jimmy sound familiar?
“You seein’ someone else?”
“Don’t start, Jimmy,” Rose muttered.
Stone. Jimmy Stone. An ex-boyfriend of hers. An ex-fiance, in fact.
Fantastic.
“‘m not starting nothin’, Rose,” he shrugged in defence.
“Yes, you are. You’re asking if I’m seeing someone else, like we’re still seeing each other.”
The Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and blew out a breath. He couldn’t decide what was worse about this situation: being face to face with an ex-fiance of Rose’s and knowing that Rose once loved the man standing opposite him - loved him so much she planned to marry him; being face to face with someone who he remembers did not treat her kindly; being stuck in a rather awkward and heavily loaded domestic; seeing Rose look upset and uncomfortable; having to stay quiet and be reminded that he wasn’t Rose’s new bloke - or maybe he was supposed to act like he was? Did she want him to back her up? No, it was definitely that one before that: seeing Rose upset and uncomfortable. So that was his first problem to fix.
“Rose-” he started.
“Listen, mate. I don’t know who you are but if you - “
“Jimmy, for god’s sake -” Rose groaned, although the tremble in her voice alerted the Doctor to her fear, so he placed his hand gently on her back to ease her nerves.
Apparently, and he had much reason to believe so, judging by the man opposite him squaring his shoulders and looking more and more angry as the Doctor kept his hand on Rose’s back: he was entering into a fight. In a pub. In Southwark. The Doctor held out his free hand as a peace-offering, a preventative resolve. Mostly because this lad looked like he could deck him quite easily, but also because he knew he himself could quite easily destroy this boy’s entire existence and that probably wouldn’t be Rose’s first choice. So he didn’t back away, and instead remained steady by Rose’s side.
“C’mon Jimmy, enough!”
Rose’s panic must have brought Jimmy back to his surroundings, and the Doctor thought that they shared at least that in common. He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair. The Doctor kept a steady watch over Rose, checking for any indication that she might want him to step in and defend her. She seemed firm, if a little panicked. He kept her close and poised himself.
But all that went out the window, when Jimmy grabbed her hand a little too fiercely and she winced.
“Ok, I think you need to leave.” The Doctor held his arm out in front of Rose and, when she didn’t protest, he stayed put. Evidently, Jimmy wasn’t about to budge either. “Right now.”
“Who’d you think you are?”
“Jimmy pl-“
“Rose, come on. This guy?”
“Don’t talk over her-“
“Get your hands off her!”
“Jimmy!”
“Rose, please! C'mon, don't do this! Just - just, give me another chance, alright? I’ve changed, I swear!”
“Stop it!” She choked, a sound that shifted The Doctor’s need to protect to his need to act, and he took a firm step towards Jimmy in warning.
And then, a flush of colour blurred towards him, a searing pain struck against his left cheek, a ringing in his ears beamed so loud and he realised he’d been punched in the face.
***
He groaned in pain, the throb under his eye and the side of his nose was one he didn't expect to hurt so much for someone who had so far to this day died nine times.
“Don’t know what I did to deserve that but I - ah!” He gasped when Rose applied a moment’s too much pressure of the makeshift ice pack to his cheek.
She winced in his place. “Sorry!”
They were outside, sat on the pavement of a quiet road behind the pub. She was crouched down facing him, balancing herself with her hand on his knee and gently touching the ice to his left cheek. It must be getting on for midnight now, the pub’ll be closing soon, but the beer garden was still quite rowdy behind them.
He flinched when she placed the ice back on his skin. “Being your friend has its perks, but this is not one of them.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. He softened, giving her a half-hearted grin, but then wincing at the pain. She hadn’t noticed though: her eyes were watching the cloth closely but unfocused. “That’s… well. That’s Jimmy for you.”
The way she spoke about him always gave him a bad feeling, and he wasn’t one to delight in the stories of Rose’s ex-boyfriends so they didn’t speak about it all that often. But having watched them interact tonight, and watched the way she flinched when he moved, only seemed to solidify his doubts. “Rose, if you’re about to tell me what I think it is you don’t want to tell me, then for the sake of all three of us: don’t tell me.”
She sighed, nodding. “No, I know. And believe me, Mum certainly gave him what for. And Mickey.”
He grumbled, trying to ease the fury burning under his skin, itching to be released. “Just about the only time I’ll ever be thankful for Mickey Smith.”
She smiled, but not one that reached her eyes. She pulled back her hand and the sting of the night’s air prickled against the wet patch on his skin, moving to sit herself down next to him instead. She retreated into herself, just as she always did when she became lost in thought, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen her do so like this. It was terrifying.
“Hey, come here,” he whispered, carefully shuffling closer to her when she seemed to have not heard him. She sniffed, awkwardly chuckling when it became apparent she was close to tears, leaning her head against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his.
“I know it wasn’t my fault,” she mumbled, and he tilted his head down to hear her better against the low rumble of noise behind them. “I spent a few years thinking it was, you know? I had nothing to offer him, didn’t have any money to help support him in his music. We were fine, in the beginning-” She shuffled awkwardly, pulling back.
“But, what?”
“Na, never mind. Don’t know why I’m telling you this. Not exactly your thing, is it?” she laughed, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her cardigan. “Me rattling on about ex-boyfriends outside a pub where you just got punched? Bit too normal.”
“I’m quite miffed that all three of those things in that sentence are what you consider to be normal.”
She laughed and shook her head back to her senses. She twisted to press the ice back to his face but he took it from her, wrapping his spare arm around her to bring her back into him. “I’m here, I’m listening. You can tell me about it. If you want.”
She sighed and cleared her throat. “I dunno. I guess I just really thought he was the one. He was older - well, not as old as you-” He prodded her hip with his finger. “Sorry.” She giggled. “But, yeah. Felt like he had his life together. And he chose me, wanted me to move in with him. Asked me to marry him. It just… it felt - I felt special. Like he’d picked me.”
She wiped her nose once more on her cardigan and he wasn’t sure if she was shaking her head at the memory of nuzzling herself against his shoulder. Either way, he was transfixed by the way she fiddled with the hem of her dress; watching her fingers lightly trace backwards and forwards over the dotted line.
“It’s not supposed to feel like that, you know,” he said. “Like it's a competition, and you won that one.”
She scoffed and he pulled away to look at her, confused. “What?”
“S’ just. Ironic.”
“What is?”
She hesitated, and he waited patiently. “Just, sometimes I feel that way with you.”
“What?”
“Not like -“ she interrupted quickly. “Not that we’re, I mean- not like I see us as, y’know. Well, whatever. Anyway - I mean, ’s like, of all the people in this world, or all the people throughout history, in the whole universe and I’m the one who gets to travel with you. Just a regular old Londoner who enjoys nights out at the pub in 2006. You could have anyone. It’s mad, and I’ll never get it.”
He blinked, replaying her words in his mind and trying to see her thought pattern. How she could possibly think she was lucky when luck had nothing to do with any of it. “Is that how he made you see it?”
“Well…” she considered. “Yeah.”
“Rose-”
“But it is though, isn’t it?” She laughed at his surprise, like it was obvious to her. “Think about it. Of all of his girlfriends, and of all the people who fancied him, I was his favourite-" she pulled a face in mild disgust at her words and shook her head "- not that that’s anything to brag about.”
He studied her; the way her eyebrows drew together when she thought; the way she the mascara on her lashes had begun to flake to her cheeks, the very small faint dot on her nose that told him she must have pierced it a few years back and decided against it. “Rose, he’s not the prize. And I’m definitely not the prize. You are.”
She scoffed, nudging his knee. “Oh, stop it.”
“I’m being serious!”
“No I know, and you’re right. He’s a twat. I’m better off without him I know. Jury’s still out on you though.”
It made her laugh, and it was nice to see her smile again. But it wasn’t the smile he wanted from her. “You really don’t see it, do you?”
Her eyes searched his for a moment, and whatever they were looking for must have been found because she quickly lost her confidence soon after and averted her gaze. She smiled awkwardly and he waited patiently, for once not the one buckling under the pressure of the silence. He was determined to make her see herself the way she should be seeing herself, not whatever being in love with this boy made her feel like it was normal.
She shuddered from the cold so he shifted in response, removing his hand from her side to unbutton his jacket. She was right: it was bloody cold. He draped his jacket over her shoulders and she pulled at the lapels, tightening it around her. She pushed her chin into her neck and her eyes closed for a second and he realised she was breathing in his scent. Well, maybe. Probably not. Don’t think like that, she almost certainly isn’t.
He paused, whether out of his own anxiety or waiting until he knew she would be ready to hear him, he didn’t know. “This isn’t school, this isn’t being picked for the sports team or studying to get into the top maths class. This is about you, what you draw to you. It wasn’t that you didn’t demonstrate enough Good Girlfriend Qualities to win Jimmy’s love, and it wasn't that you didn’t tick all the right boxes for him to ask you to marry him. He was drawn to you, like a gravitational pull that suns have on their solar systems. Your energy, your warmth, your humour and understanding and strength and compassion and all the things that make you you. Of course, after a while, he was drawn to something else - himself, by the sounds of it - but that didn’t stop you from burning bright in the centre of your solar system any less.”
She was watching him closely, still shuddering a little, and he had a feeling it wasn't from the cold. He should feel the same, he thought. He should be nervous too. But it was Rose, and if there was one thing he knew he would never find arduous, it was telling her how wonderful she was. “It’s the same for me. You’re not proving yourself to me or showing me that you’ve earned your place by my side. It’s just by being you that I want you there.”
She didn’t say anything at first, quietly thinking. Her eyes were large, as though they alone were processing all the words he was saying. Eventually, though, she smiled. “I guess when you put it like that.”
Just do it, you coward.
It would be easy: he could just lean in now, and, in the position they were currently in, neither would have to worry about awkward angles or neck sprains nor crashing noses. She looked almost like she was expecting him to. He considered all of the reasons why he shouldn’t: loud and noisy over the fence, her talking about her abusive ex-boyfriend, both of them freezing, being sat on the pavement, the moment after where he’d have to acknowledge he’d done it and, of course, the fact that he may have just been very wrong about how she was feeling and perhaps didn’t want a very old man kissing her. But he just couldn’t seem to find any of those reasons more pressing than the only reason he had to kiss her: because he so desperately wanted to.
He leaned forwards, pausing when their noses touched, a silent request that was granted when she closed the gap. Her lips were so warm despite the crisp September air and he submerged himself in their solace, unable to stop himself searching for more. The kiss was slow and they explored each other, oscillating between the all-consuming need to taste the other and the unwillingness to too hastily satisfy it. And oh did he need her. To be completely permeated by her.
He craved more. He knew this was going to happen, that as soon as he crossed that threshold and allowed himself to indulge in them then he wouldn’t stop until he was entirely satiated and he knew he could never completely be, not with Rose. She appeared to be feeling the same way, by the way her hand had reached his neck and her leg had hooked itself over his and she must be uncomfortable, he thought. Without breaking their kiss, he tried to locate his hands - which he realised were on her waist - and pulled her closer to him and it worked, at least, for a while. She groaned in frustration and pulled back sharply, taking hold of his hands and using them as leverage to pull herself, quickly tugging for him to follow her until they were both standing. Their lips collided once more and he felt her search for his lapels, forcefully gripping the collar of his shirt when she couldn’t find them and bringing him down closer and he obeyed, pushing them both back into the wall behind her. He tore himself away to press messy kisses along her jaw and down her neck, an act met by her breathless moans as she searched for his shirt buttons and the taste of her, the feel of her infiltrating his every sense was unbearable, and yet he ached for more.
There was a persistent sound, he was aware of that much, and it was really starting to piss him off, whatever it was. But he could live with it. That was until Rose groaned in annoyance too. She pulled away around about the same time he realised that bloody noise was her phone.
“If that’s your mother, I’ll kill her.”
She smirked, rummaging through her bag to find her phone. She took one look at it and brought it to her ear. She looked him in the eyes and with a wicked grin she answered, “Hi, mum.”
He fought hard to keep his for fucks sake in his throat. His hands still planted on the wall behind him, he pushed against it: the only way he was going to successfully tear himself away from her. He leaned his back against the wall beside her and did his best to compose himself. He could hear her, Jackie Tyler, nattering away on the end of the phone. They’d been around her flat not 4 hours ago, what on Earth did she have to say? He cleared his throat and made a start on refastening his buttons and smoothing down his hair.
“Well, we’re on our way back now anyway, Mum. Be 'bout half an hour? I can pick us some up from the Co-op.”
He might have to make a dive for the TARDIS tonight because he had completely forgotten, whilst he was snogging Rose to within an inch of her life, that he was supposed to be spending the night at her mother's later. Rose hung up the phone and they both looked ahead, avoiding the inevitable moment when they finally looked at each other for the first time since they rewrote the terms of their friendship. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her head twitch and slowly turn to him, so he turned to slowly look at her too. They met each other’s gaze and their lips tightened until they couldn’t suppress their drunken giggles, shaking their heads every now and then at the reality of it all. He quietened first after a few minutes, leaning his head against the wall to just watch her smile.
“Oh, I’ve missed this,” she sighed happily.
“We’ve never actually done this. I don’t know who you’ve been kissing.”
“Not you, you plonker, I mean this. Snogs behind the back of the pub. Sally-langies, bar fights. Getting dressed up, going on a date -“
He winced. “By the sounds of it, not a good one then.”
“Ha! So you have been taking me on dates!”
He scoffed, rolling down his sleeves and fixing his tie to look a little less scattered. “Don’t tell me it was the Bear’s Paw that brought you up to speed and not the lavender fields of Cornucopia or the Egyptian-Emerald sunsets of Jahoo.”
She giggled, linking her arm with his. “That’s your problem, that is. Try too hard to tick all the boxes.”
“You’re probably right,” he sighed. “Turns out all I needed to do was take you to a pub and get punched.”
She shrugged. “I felt sorry for you.”
“It certainly didn’t feel like sympathy.”
She grinned, releasing his hand to pick up his jacket from the floor. He watched in awe at her humanness: just the boring, everyday things Rose Tyler did just like any other human, but with so much more magnetism and allure. The way she sniffed wetly in the cold air, how her hair fell messily to her shoulders, putting her phone back in her bag and the little manoeuvre she made to swing it around her body, pulling her dress down her thighs with little goosebumps on them because she for some reason refused to dress comfortably for an Autumn night.
“Rose?”
“Mmm?”
She turned to him, swinging his jacket back around her shoulders. He edged closer to her until her lighthearted expression faded and her ears spiked with curiosity. His arms encircled her and she reached up to wrap hers around his neck, sighing when he nuzzled the crook of her neck.
“I am completely in orbit around you,” he whispered only for her to hear, pressing one last gentle kiss to her shoulder.