Fic: [Doctor Who] Dressing Up.

[intrikate88]

Title: Dressing Up

Words: 689

Fandom: Doctor Who (Rose/Ten II, alt!verse, post-JE)

Summary: Life with the Doctor has never been simple, but this new Doctor keeps things more complicated than Rose ever imagined she'd see. Fic #01 of the random firstlines post.

Excerpt: While Rose knew in theory that the meta-crisis had meant that the Doctor who had followed her home like an abandoned puppy was also half Donna, she was unprepared to gradually discover that, as a result, her husband also seemed to be a bisexual transvestite with some issues with dissociative identity disorder.

While Rose knew in theory that the meta-crisis had meant that the Doctor who had followed her home like an abandoned puppy was also half Donna, she was unprepared to gradually discover that, as a result, her husband also seemed to be a bisexual transvestite with some issues with dissociative identity disorder. While this didn't make as much of a difference in his personality and behavior as might be expected, it was slightly unsettling when she found him in the dressing room at H&M, wearing a wrap dress and scowling at his complete lack of curves.

"He's alarming the other customers," a shopgirl explained, when she arrived at the Camden Market location. "It isn't that we.... I mean, we welcome all sorts, really, no matter what, um, way of life they practice, but-"

Rose pushed past the girl, who did not deserve to have to explain, and with whom she sympathised, having dealt her share of difficult and occasionally crazy customers back when she worked for Henrik's. Past the racks of tights and trousers, a maroon sweater at which she resolved to come back to look later, she came to the dressing room, where a small crowd had gathered to watch. A flash of annoyance distracted her, at their readiness to involve themselves where they weren't welcome, to feel better about their problems because at least their husbands weren't cross-dressing and making a spectacle- and in Camden Market, no less; were people even allowed to judge appearances there?

"Oh, good, Rose, you're here," said the Doctor, and spun around. His skirt flared gently. "Do you think the red cardigan goes better with this skirt, or the teal? All these people aren't particularly helpful, and you have better taste."

Rose gnawed gently on her bottom lip. "The teal, Doctor, but... you do realize you're in a skirt, in public, yeah?"

"It's only a convention of human society to judge undivided leg coverings as exclusively female, you know, and not even a very old one, as you lot were wearing robes and kilts up until recently. Also I'm biologically and psychologically female, partially. So convention can hardly be expected to apply to me."

"What about the convention of not looking completely mad?" Rose pointed out.

The Doctor tilted his head, considering. "I don't remember ever trying to not look mad. Did we do that? The meta-crisis did jumble things up a bit." He paused. "No, never; never tried to not look mad."

Rose looked at him. So much had changed; she was no longer alone, and neither was he, and it was all... different. The other customers in the store, still browsing around her and trying to pretend they were looking at accessories, snuck furtive glances at the couple having the sort of misunderstanding that they all hoped never to have; Rose thought about a church, so long ago, when her very first Doctor had looked at a bride and groom and said that was one adventure he could never have. All those ordinary people, looking for ordinary problems in their marriages: he had looked at them with wonder, not impatience. She saw this man that she had married, and saw Donna in him, that brave woman she had met in a universe so far away, who had lived an ordinary life but had been terrified that was all there was, and spent her life looking for ways to wander off for more.

This man that she knew so well and had only just met, who was about as unsure of his place in the world as she was still figuring out her place in this one, this man standing before her in a dress searching the mirror earnestly for cleavage that was another universe away- he, and she, was the... the alien, the human, the person that Rose had loved since the beginning. That hadn't changed.

"I think," Rose said, "that you should get the teal cardigan. So that we can share."

And as the Doctor grinned at her and ambient dressing room lights glowed around them, she thought she could see a flash of ginger, in his hair.

Comments

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THIS. Indeed, they never did try to not look mad.

Except maybe that one time with the jam. :)

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Heee thank you. Their normal is just so special.

[misura.livejournal.com]

Hee! Totally crackalicious and entirely too easy to imagine actually happening. *g*

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Haha isn't it though? And really, the Doctor does have some valid points about conventions...

[fiction-junkie.livejournal.com]

awwe! funny and touching. complete and utter LOVE! i'd be more squeeful in my comment but I'm late for work!

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Don't be late! I'm glad you liked it!

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

I love you. Like, a lot! :D

This is adorable and funny!

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

XDDDD THANK YOU!

(I'm glad to see it came together okay. I was pretty sure nothing could beat the imaginations of everybody reading the first lines lol.)

(ps love your icon. Because it is always hilarious when Jackie is terrifyingly inappropriate with the Doctor. Liiiiike that time in my icon.)

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful. And I love Rose for being completely unfazed in the end.

[yavie-namarie.livejournal.com]

OMG. You wrote it!!!!!!!
o_0

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOL I DID