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"in a dream i was a werewolf, my soul was filled with crystal light" werewolf by cocorosie

Days always pass by far too slowly for Rose Tyler. When she was little, she thought that the sun moved on its own, that the earth was the one that stood still, and she always wondered how it switched sides in the morning from where it had set the night before. She had glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of her pink and yellow bedroom, and she used to make up her own constellations, placing each cheap sticker with so much care on the blue paint. Now she knows that it is her that is moving. The universe has better things to do than preoccupy itself with the ridiculous ideas of a precocious little girl on a small planet in a huge solar system in a vast galaxy in an impossibly immense existence with time, time that stupid humans presume to know and control, moving impossibly slowly, day after day, year after year, for forever. She can't believe she ever thought she was so important. She hasn't even got her A-levels.

At night, she still gazes out at the stars and pretends that she can make a dent in the universe like she always thought she could. The cold wind breezes through her window and one of many drunken teenagers stumbles out of the bar across the street from her and her mum's flat and vomits onto the sidewalk. London. Home, sweet home.

One night, when she is twenty, she dreams that she is the star and she is the wolf, the bad wolf, doomed to die in a burst of golden light, with eyes as brilliant and devastating as the sun. Her mother tells her to stop staying up so late and hurry or she'll be late for work. She walks slower than she normally does and gets yelled at by her boss for dilly-dallying.

The next night she meets Doctor John Smith, and everything changes.

The streetlights are particularly harsh when one has had too much to drink, especially when one is as much of a lightweight as Rose Tyler. During the course of the night she had managed to A. Kiss Mickey, best friend, not a good idea when he is halfway in love with her, B. Complain loudly about the lack of good music in the pub, C. When asked by Shireen what good music is fall off her chair instead of answer, and, perhaps most pathetically, D. Reconnect with Jimmy Stone, ex-boyfriend and friendly neighborhood arsehole.

Rose is reflecting on the irritating side effects of alcohol, specifically those pertaining to the increased brightness of street lamps when Jimmy's hands wander a little lower than she would like. He has her wedged between his body, which smells like smoke and bad cologne, and the brick walls of the alley by the bar.

For a minute Rose considers just giving in and letting him do whatever he wants with her. It would certainly be easier to do than fight him off in her current inebriated state. But for one perfect moment, as she reaches her hand to the wall behind her, she recalls her dream. She is the bad wolf, and she creates herself. And she begins to fight back.

"Get off!"

"What? I thought we were having fun." Jimmy bites down on her neck, hard enough to leave teeth marks.

"Not anymore, now let me go!" As she struggles ineffectually against the onslaught of his tongue and teeth, Rose suddenly thinks that maybe Jimmy won't listen, like he never listened to her pleas not to sleep with the groupies at his shows or her requests to stop gripping her wrists so hard, hard enough to leave bruises that her mum asked too many questions about. As this single terrifying thought enters her mind, Rose begins to fight harder to leave his embrace, but he has her pinned and oh god, his eyes are darker than ever, pupils too big for just lust, and she remembers needle marks on the inside crease of his elbow at night when the moon was brighter than she had ever seen. Jimmy is high and she is completely pissed and the brick wall is starting to hurt her back and she has no way out, from this situation or from her drab life as just another insignificant shop girl.

These thoughts all hit her with the force of a gale wind, and for a moment she can't breathe until all at once Jimmy's body is gone and replaced with only cold, empty space. Jimmy is being held up with one hand by a storm of grey leather and pale eyes.

"Run!" the storm calls out.

She does.

When she reaches the end of the alley and looks back at her savior, she can see him as he speaks to Jimmy, one leather-clad arm still holding the would-be rocker an inch off the ground. Whatever he says is apparently enough to make Jimmy look over at her with fear in his black eyes, and he backs away slowly until he is sprinting in the opposite direction.

The storm jogs over to her until he is standing a respectable distance away. He really does have the most beautiful eyes, she thinks.

"Are you okay?" He reaches his hand out as if to take her arm, but he seems to think better of it and drops it lamely back to his side.

"That was weird. He looked really ood. Odd. His face, I mean. It looked a bit like plastic, yeah?"

"What?"

Rose sways unsteadily, and promptly throws up all over the man's shoes.

When she wakes in the morning, Rose has a splitting headache. From where she is lying on her mother's horrendous floral couch, the one that reminds her of grandmothers and knitting, she can see that her shoes are on the wrong feet and her legs are covered in glitter. As she pulls herself into a half-sitting position, she feels a sudden rush of nausea. She groans, dropping her head into her hands.

"Serves you right," Jackie Tyler mutters from the kitchen, "waltzing in here in the dead of night with a strange man. 'Doctor John Smith' my arse."

Rose decides to ignore her mother's vague, rambling complaints and opts to make her way to the bathroom to clean herself up. When she returns, mascara smudged and hair tamed, Jackie has finished fixing up a hangover cure. Rose murmurs her thanks and plops down at the breakfast table. From her vantage point near the window, she can see someone picking up the rubbish from last night, beer bottles and cigarettes and one perfect pink high heel. The sight makes her inexplicably sad.

The silence is suddenly broken by a series of sharp knocks on the door of the flat. As Jackie trots to the door, Rose downs the rest of her mother's concoction and walks carefully over to the couch. The sleeves of her sweatshirt are a bit too long, and she grasps the ends with her fingers, a nervous habit she has always had. The pink material scratches against her skin, and she absentmindedly recalls that she was, in fact, taken back to her flat by the man from last night and that must be who her mum was referring to. John Smith. What an unfortunate name.

When Rose hears Jackie's loud screech followed by the sound of a slap and a quick succession of thumps on the floor, she thinks nothing of it. After all, when is Jackie not angry at people who knock at the door before nine? She has a very aggressive personality and claims that that's how she knows her dear Rose takes after Pete. Rose and her father are (or rather were, in Pete's case) both fairly passive and calm people.

"Stop it you mad woman! I just wanted to see if she's okay!"

"She's fine! We're fine! Now leave my home before I make you leave!"

The intruder, though, enters the sitting room of the flat and stands at the entrance, back straight and arms rigid. He glances at Rose, who is lying prone on the couch, picking at her blonde hair, and exits just as abruptly until he walks backwards into the room, this time holding up his rough hands in defense as Jackie shouts abuse. He stumbles slightly and lands awkwardly at the end of the flowery couch, near Rose's feet.

"What are you doing here? What do you want with my Rose?"

"Nothing. Never looking for anything, me. Just a doctor, making sure his patient got out alive."

Rose sits up and relaxes against the arm of the couch, picking at the fraying ends of her sweatshirt as she assesses the man opposite her. He is clearly avoiding her gaze, staring straight forward, head tilted upward just enough that he can't see the telly, which is currently running a program about pregnancies and paternity tests and bad accents. Jackie continues her verbal assault, matched in harmony with the (loud) conversation between a sixteen-year-old mother and her shit-for-brains boyfriend.

"I'm a doctor. Doctor John Smith, but just call me the Doctor. I can show you my card if you like."

Ah, so this is the man from last night. No wonder. Jackie always worries about the men that Rose takes home, even more so after the disaster that was Jimmy Stone. Rose faintly recognizes his face, but it isn't until he turns his head and fixes his eyes on hers that she can place him completely. It's difficult to forget eyes like that. Before she can remark on her realization, he turns his head back to her mother and hands her a small white paper. His card, she supposes.

"Doctor John Smith, like I said. Specializing in cardiovascular surgery. I work at the hospital nearby. I live in this neighborhood. I'm not a serial murderer. Ask anyone." As he speaks, his Adam's apple becomes more prominent, and she notices he hasn't shaved in a few days. His hair is cropped short, accentuating his big ears, and when his face relaxes in between sentences, he looks hopeless or afraid or wrong somehow, like his bones are too heavy for him to lift. It makes Rose unbearably sad for him, for the sake of a man who she barely knows.

"Doctor! You say you're a doctor, but why were you in a scummy alley so late at night? Says he saved her, he says, I say no, Rose knows better than to flounce around with that Jimmy bloke again and we don't need you here to check up on her thank you very much. Twice her age, and he's trying to get into my flat to see 'er!"

The Doctor (for she thinks the title suits him) glances at Rose nervously, silently pleading with her to tell her mother that yes, he did help out, and no, he's not a bad man who's trying to corrupt her, not like Jimmy did. His leather jacket is too big on his shoulders, and his shoes are the same ones from last night, poorly cleaned. They must be his only pair.

"Mum, what he's telling you is true. He's a nice man, jus' let 'im stay. He only wants to check up on me."

Jackie Tyler is visibly upset, shaking with fury in the way only a mother can, but the Doctor looks relieved and for some reason that matters more to Rose. She likes him, she decides.

"That doesn't explain what he was doing in that alley, and you know that no respectable man would be wandering through there at that time of night."

"Was just passing by. I'd just finished a double shift, my flat's a little ways from the pub. Don't like taking a cab. I heard her yelling, and I jus' wanted to see if everything was okay."

Jackie harrumphs once, then twice, then simply leaves the room, throwing behind her one "Doctor John Smith indeed."

For one minute everything is quiet, and Rose and the Doctor are sitting on the tacky couch miles away from each other, one in a flat in London and the other in outer space. Then all at once the Doctor stands, offers his apologies for intruding on her hospitality, and knocks over a table lamp in his haste to leave.

Rose can hear sirens pass by the building, and she wonders if the person inside will live or die. The loudest noise in the flat is the telly, blaring out an advert for breath mints. A fly buzzes clumsily around the ceiling fan, soon to be another insect corpse for the window sill. The phone rings, and she stands as if her bones were much too heavy. The rest of the day passes in a blur, slower than ever before.

A/N: This is my very first fanfic, so don't be too harsh. I've always wished there were more human doctor stories, so I'm taking it upon myself to write one. Also, I've only seen the first two series of the new Doctor Who and none of the old, so I won't be including that many references to the show. I've always loved the NineRose dynamic though, which is why I am writing this. So read and review and stuff. Go on.