doyle: tardis (pairing - rose/sarah)
doyle ([personal profile] doyle) wrote2006-05-26 12:23 am

Fic: Envy, Content and Sufficient Champagne (Rose/Sarah, G)

Title: Envy, Content and Sufficient Champagne
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Rose/Sarah Jane
Rating: G
Notes: Backup fic for [livejournal.com profile] kowarth for the [livejournal.com profile] dw_femslash ficathon – request was for any couple and a ball. Spoilers for School Reunion. Title’s from Dorothy Parker.
Summary: Rose comes back down to earth.

Outside in the hotel’s car park, the quite terrifying sound of two hundred seventeen-year-olds getting boozed up and hormonal became a dull roar, drowned out by the semi-rhythmic thumping that Sarah Jane was determined to call music if only to reassure herself she wasn’t ready for the free bus pass and the blue rinse just yet. She’d told Saga where they could stick their subscription, thank you very much.

Still, as she gathered up her frock and sat gingerly on the low wall, she allowed herself a small grumble that she was too old for this. It was midnight, and it was February, and it was freezing, and she was irritatingly sober because she’d felt she had to live up to her faux teacher persona and stick to the coke. And there wasn’t a single alien invasion to be seen. Kenny, she was starting to realise, had been making that bit up. Trying to relive the glory days one last time, maybe. None of the dull teachers she’d spoken to knew anything about the school blowing up or the godmaker or the rest of it. Even the kids had looked puzzled – “is it some sort of puzzle, miss?” (Miss!) Kenny had helped saved the world, and fast forward a couple of years and the world didn’t even notice.

It was a shame. She’d been looking forward to some aliens, and there wasn’t so much as a sinister geography teacher with a world-dominating gleam in his eye.

There was Rose, though, coming out of the hotel’s fire exit in the dress that had popped the eyes of more than one acne’n’angst-suffering adolescent tonight. She was swaying a little - she was only undercover as an ex-dinnerlady, she’d said, and she didn’t need to be anybody’s role model. Sarah had refilled her glass to the brim, thinking to herself that tea might be the national drink of disaster management but for a recently-broken heart you couldn’t beat red wine, and lots of it. This was, she had decided, one of myriad reasons why it was lucky she was never going to be someone’s mother.

“Hello,” she called. “Did you get tired of being handed mobile numbers of boys whose dads probably haven’t started shaving yet?”

“Not just the boys. I got one girl. Tracey something bought me a drink. That’s progressive, that is.” Rose beamed, beautifully and a bit dopily, and Sarah resigned herself to being vomited on or used as a pillow at some point in the night’s proceedings. “Oh, but did you see Kenny?”

“All grown up, as they say, isn’t he?” Built like a rugby player, he’d towered over both of them, nice girlfriend on his arm as he pumped Sarah’s hand and thanked her for coming, and she’d thought: but you were just a weedy little boy and that was only five minutes ago, wasn’t it? Surely it couldn’t have been whole years before Rose turned up on her doorstep at three in the morning, all brave smiles and plans for jobs, A-Levels, worthy causes.

“Least he left you the dog,” she’d said, and frowned as if wondering why she had ended up in Sarah Jane’s kitchen in Croydon instead of her mother’s, or anywhere else on Earth, and then she’d asked, “Is it all right if I stay here a couple of days?”

“As long as you like,” Sarah had said.

“I love this song!” And here she was, drunk and giggly and dancing by herself outside a glorified school disco. Sarah stood up and went to her, because if misery loved company then so did bouncing-back-and-getting-on-with-things. Rose laughed, probably at her attempts to dance, and slung her arms around Sarah’s neck and guided her into the rhythm.

“Have you got a lecture in the morning?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve got a deadline. Unfortunately, we’re not all lazy students who can sleep in and copy our friends’ notes.”

“You secretly get K9 to write your articles anyway.”

“Oh, such slander!”

“You do. I bet you so do.” The song had changed, and Rose dropped her chin unto Sarah’s shoulder and now they weren’t so much dancing as just standing in a loose hug. “I’m so drunk.”

“I’m so old,” Sarah said, and earned herself a poke in the side. “Ow! Sorry. I’m differently young.

“Better than most of the kids in there,” Rose mumbled, her voice trailing into a yawn on the last word.

“Don’t go to sleep on me standing up. At least wait until we’re in the car. Rose…? Oh, go on, then. I’m still convinced the legal drinking age should be thirty-five.”

So this was that real life thing that people kept talking about; deadlines in the morning. Being the sensible, sober one. Days racing past in the right order. Buying enough milk for two and coming home to a house with the lights already on and Rose’s notes all over the kitchen table.

“This getting a life thing,” she whispered to Rose, propping her up as she fumbled for her car keys, “I think I should have tried it ages ago.”

And for just a second there was a flash of dark blue in the corner of her peripheral vision, and years ago her heart would have jumped and she would have felt stupid for days to realise it was nothing but a van passing beneath a streetlight; but she was busy pouring Rose into the passenger's seat, and thinking about her article, and remembering that it was Rose's birthday next week, and for the very first time she didn't even notice.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Bloody hell, that was quick! *g* Thank you!

[identity profile] paratti.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I read fast:)
gwynnega: (Default)

[personal profile] gwynnega 2006-05-25 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, that was wonderful.

She’d been looking forward to some aliens, and there wasn’t so much as a sinister geography teacher with a world-dominating gleam in his eye.

Hee!
ext_17485: (Default)

[identity profile] calapine.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Marvellous! Much love for shiny characters and pretty words.

( Bg the sensible, sober one. D racing past in the right order.

Typo things?)

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 06:51 am (UTC)(link)
*facepalms* I was sure I'd spellchecked and read through, apparently not - thanks for the catch!
ext_17679: (Default)

[identity profile] netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Rose/Sarah Jane, yay! Love Rose going to Sarah Jane's when she came back to earth, being differently young and getting K-9 to write her articles. Because that's absolutley what you would do with a robot dog.

Love this!

[identity profile] livii.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, very nice! It works really well and is very sweet and yet not at all sappy.

Thank you so much for doing a backup - I truly, truly appreciate it. :D

(Minor thing - in the third last paragraph it says 'bg' for 'being' and 'D' for 'Days', I think?)

[identity profile] larakailyn.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh wow - that absolutely lovely! I love how you dealt with Sarah's thoughts, and her relationship with Rose after she showed up on her doorstep. Beautifully done.

[identity profile] lilith-morgana.livejournal.com 2006-05-25 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
YAY!!

Lovely! Of course Sarah needs K-9 to write her articles, she's busy shagging her brains out having fun with Rose. Omg.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
They also Fight Crime, when they can make it out of the bedroom.

I bet K9 has to do the shopping for them, too.

[identity profile] chelseagirl47.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 12:08 am (UTC)(link)
Fantastic!

[identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
My Rose/Sarah is much angstier. Yours, I suspect, is much better. So sweet, so lovely. And the last paragraph kills me.

[identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
Lovely and funny and so wonderfully written.

And the ending paragraph is just the best.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you!
tellitslant: agatha making a shushing gesture (Default)

[personal profile] tellitslant 2006-05-26 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
*giggles* Oh, fantastic, and so fun! I'm glad other people are writing this pairing, too, hee. I loved this a lot.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, beautiful icon, and thanks!

I'm glad other people are writing this pairing, too

I need to at least give them a dedicated post on [livejournal.com profile] who_otp, if not their own comm. More people need to write them, dammit!
ext_6657: She solders!  With glasses! (Default)

[identity profile] katemonkey.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 09:22 am (UTC)(link)
*hearts both of them so*

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
*hearts their love*

[identity profile] ladyvivien.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 09:40 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, that's just fucking perfect!

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

[identity profile] melata-fic.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 11:15 am (UTC)(link)
This is so funny and perfect and it sounds like the Sarah-Jane of the episode. Also Rose, with her talking about how Sarah-Jane gets K-9 to write her articles. *snorts* Awesome.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you very much!

[identity profile] violetisblue.livejournal.com 2006-05-26 04:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Sweet, funny, in character--love it. :-) Well done.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Dear RTD: I don't ask for much, but could Rose please move in with Sarah and be her girlfriend? Thx.

Glad you liked. :D

[identity profile] wishfulaces.livejournal.com 2006-05-27 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
That was absolutely splendid. Sarah & Rose were just so very comfortable with each other, and yes I think the best line was:

Sarah had refilled her glass to the brim, thinking to herself that tea might be the national drink of disaster management but for a recently-broken heart you couldn’t beat red wine, and lots of it. This was, she had decided, one of myriad reasons why it was lucky she was never going to be someone’s mother.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I really like writing comfortable sorts of relationships, yes.

[identity profile] alixtii.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 06:53 am (UTC)(link)
Nicely done.

I still don't think I have enough of a grasp of these characters to say much more, I do know one thing: this is a good story.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2006-05-28 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you!

[identity profile] kowarth.livejournal.com 2006-05-29 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
superb!
the voices here are so right and self explanatory. i adore it, wish i had the clarity of storytelling you convey here too.

sorry it took so long for me to reply, but i was away all last week.
thank you so much

[identity profile] bekkypk.livejournal.com 2006-06-01 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
but i was away all last week.

And I adore it too.
xx

[identity profile] femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com 2006-06-02 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
LOVE IT!

[identity profile] kijikun.livejournal.com 2006-06-05 04:37 am (UTC)(link)
Loved it!

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2006-06-11 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Really lovely, and Just Right. :)

[identity profile] laurakaye.livejournal.com 2006-06-21 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
So, you ARE going to start writing stories about Sarah and Rose Fighting Crime, right?

*bats eyes*

(This was absolutely lovely.)

[identity profile] minerva-fan.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Absolutely beautiful.

[identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! They're very much one of my OTPs.

[identity profile] tricksterquinn.livejournal.com 2009-01-29 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
This is so lovely! Your Sarah Jane voice is just amazingly good (I'm pretty impressed with all your voices, I've got to tell you), and this future is really pretty and nicely hopeful. It's good to see some hope - so frequently there's just bleak, bleak, bleak.

I like that Sarah Jane is happy in her life. I do wonder what the Doctor thinks. (I firmly believe he really was looking)