Chapter Text
Rose Tyler wasn’t a coffee person, but then again, she wasn’t a morning person either - and the prospect of losing her job loomed more darkly over her head than that of drinking coffee. Just barely.
It wasn’t, of course, the most lucrative of jobs; working at Henrik’s was hardly what most little girls dreamed of. But it kept a steady enough flow of money coming in, so she kept herself fueled with caffeine for it.
And granted, a change of coffee was really the only way Rose could break the monotony of her life. Speaking of which, yesterday, Shareen had told her about a place not far from the store, Torchwood Coffee, directly above a little bookstore. So bracing herself for the bitter taste of an energy boost, Rose entered Tardis Books.
The door creaked ominously as she pushed, sounding unpleasantly like nails against a chalkboard.
"John Smith, Tardis Books, how may I help you?" said someone standing atop a table to reach an uppermost shelf. He had two pairs of spectacles on top of his head, one hand reaching for a giant biography, and his nose buried in a book on particle physics.
"I was just here for coffee. Upstairs, is it?"
"Damn," said the man. "That’s the only reason anyone comes in here anymore. Upstairs, yeah." He gave Rose Tyler a quick once-over. "Ah. And don’t let Harkness turn his charm on you; you’ll never come downstairs again."
Rose frowned a little. John was practically jumping around the pile of books he was sorting, like he couldn’t bear to keep his limbs stationary for even a fraction of a second. “Right, thanks.”
The stairs were, if possible, even creakier than the door; she wondered briefly if this Smith fellow had any regard for safety. Probably not - he looked like a bloke who would much rather spend an afternoon enraptured in a book than have any sort of building maintenance done.
There was no door at the top of the staircase, so the landing just opened up straight into a sparsely-populated little coffee shop. The barista sent a dazzling smile at her as she walked in. “Hello there,” he greeted her in a smooth American accent.
"Don’t start!" John’s voice echoed up from the first floor.
”Ignore him; he’s just jealous.”
"Am not!" came the affronted voice from downstairs.
"He cried like a baby when I accidentally spilled coffee over Great Expectations, so yeah, he’s totally not getting any," whispered the barista confidentially.
"You know I can still hear every word you’re saying, Jack? Sound carries in here!"
The barista winked at Rose. “Jack Harkness,” he introduced himself, extending a hand.
"Rose Tyler," she said with a grin, and took it.
"So, what can I get you today?"
"Anything, really. Coffee’s not my poison of choice," confessed Rose, wrinkling her nose.
Jack widened his eyes and looked positively scandalized.
”You Brits and your tea superiority complex,” he grumbled.
Rose tried to look defensive, but in truth had to bite back a giggle. “Superiority complex!”
“Yes,” he teased her, not breaking eye contact even as he pulled out a cup and started to pour some variation on coffee or another into it.
"Jack!" A woman with a straight crop of black hair glared at him from across the shop. "What did we say about customers? If you want to flirt with someone, go bother Ianto instead."
Another barista’s head popped out from around the corner. “I wouldn’t mind, sir.”
Jack winked at Rose and handed her the cup. “That’s two pounds.”
”If he winks any more, his eye’s going to fucking fall out,” said another man, his own eyes glued to his phone.
"Owen!" groaned the woman, who seemed to be some sort of manager. "Don’t you have work to do?"
"Actually, no," he said languidly, putting his feet up on the table across from him. "And I’m right, Gwen, you know I’m right."
Rose watched their banter with lively interest, finding them the most fascinating specimens of people she’d seen in weeks.
"Fuck you, Owen," groaned the manager who seemed to be called Gwen.
"Shut up!" cried John Smith from downstairs. "You’ll scare away all my nonexistent customers!"
"I think the way you stare at your feather duster is what really scares them away."
"I love my feather duster!" cried John, affrontedly. "Rose Tyler - that’s your name, right? Rose Tyler, don’t listen to him!"
”Wouldn’t dream of it,” she promised him, shaking her head. This had to be the strangest coffee shop in all of London - and she’d heard stories. “Thanks,” she added to Gwen. The long-suffering manager smiled at her.
Back downstairs, Rose came upon John inspecting his beloved duster, black spectacles now perched on his nose. “‘S a nice duster,” she offered, grinning.
He looked up at her surprisedly, as if he hadn’t heard the stairs creaking as she approached. “Isn’t it, though?” he cried, delighted.
“Not the duster again,” a woman typing away from behind the desk groaned.
"That’s Donna Noble," John informed Rose with a sigh.
"Receptionist extraordinare," Donna put in.
”Apparently my best friend, too.”
"Which basically means that I’m the one who gets all his texts every night about how he’s got a hot date with a book on ring singularities at a bar while not getting laid.”
Rose stifled a giggle.
"God," groaned John, "The world is against me."
"Look," said Rose, pulling her mobile out, "I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m going to be late for work. I probably already am…oh, shit - “
"We’re open til nine," offered Donna, looking as if she wanted to say something more, possibly,"because John Smith thinks you’re really cute, so you should definitely come back." She managed to stop herself, instead kicking the bookstore’s owner under the table.
He looked up, his ears very red. “Yeah. She’s right, we close at nine.”
Rose smiled and waved. “Maybe I’ll come back for tea. Maybe.”
"Ask her out, idiot," hissed Donna under her breath. "Go on."
"Rose? Rose Tyler, I - "
The door slammed shut.
"You didn’t even get her number!" berated Donna as John poked her with the wrong end of the feather duster.
That would have been the end of it. That should have been the end of it. The morning of the 23rd would have been one when Rose Tyler had an especially peculiar experience in coffee-drinking and just that.
But it had been a really good cup of coffee. And the company of one John Smith hadn’t exactly put a damper on her morning. So she did come back for tea, after all.
(In complete and utter honesty, it had been an extremely easy decision on Rose’s part.)
Another redheaded woman raised an eyebrow at her as she walked into Tardis Books that afternoon. “So you’re the famous Rose Tyler.”
"Famous, am I?" Rose asked, leaning against the bookshelf where the woman was sorting biographies.
"For being one of three people who ever comes in this place anymore," the woman grinned. "I’m Amy, by the way, Amy Pond."
”Are you one of the three?”
"Oh god, no," laughed Amy with a shudder. "I like the place itself, but I prefer living adventure to reading it. Not that I get much adventure anyways shelving this lot, but I’ll take what I can get."
"So then who are the others?”
"Martha Jones and Rory Williams. Med students. Nice enough, but no clue how they can get any studying done with John and Jack screaming at each other."
Rose laughed. “Poor things.”
"God, I know. I think they both have a thing for John, honestly," Amy said with a raised eyebrow and a lowered voice. "No reason for them to be here otherwise. Rory issuch a piner; it’s getting me down.”
"They sound fascinating," said Rose honestly. "Are they here now?"
"Dunno," said Amy. "Let’s find out, shall we?" She then proceeded to scream Rory’s name so loudly the roof nearly caved in.
Across the shop from them, at a table in the corner that had thick volumes piled precariously high on it, a man’s head darted up. “Hullo, Amy.”
"Hi, Rory," Amy grinned. Always here, she mouthed to Rose, who had to suppress a smile of her own. “Where did John disappear to?”
"I think he popped upstairs to yell at Jack and Ianto for - what was it again? ‘Painfully audible snogging,’ I believe," Martha supplied.
"Sounds about right," Amy reasoned. Rose noticed that whenever Amy so much as opened her mouth, a highly conspicuous blush crept across Rory’s cheeks. The phenomenon hadn’t escaped Martha, either; she was smirking into her anatomy textbook.
The room filled with the stairs’ creaking, and John’s distinctive figure approached. His eyes widened as he noticed the new presence in the room. “Rose Tyler!”
”John Smith!” she exclaimed in response, and immediately groaned because how pathetic was that?
“It was painfully audible shagging, by the way, not snogging,” John said to Martha with narrowed eyes. “Why didn’t you stop me from going up?”
"How was I to know?" asked Martha indignantly, with a not-particularly-discreet wink at Amy.
"If you came here for tea, Rose Tyler, I suggest you don’t go up. I have books about tea, though!" John said, turning his attention away from his hysterically giggling friends.
"I…I think I’ll pass."
"The books are nearly as good! We might even have a scratch-and-sniff thing somewhere, wait a mo’, I can check - "
"So you’re the one and only Rose Tyler?" inquired Martha Jones. "He wouldn't shut up about you for the past hour!"
Compared to a vast majority of the people Rose knew, Martha was making an admirable attempt to be friendly under the circumstances, and honestly at this point, she was certain that Martha would be a better match for the strange stick-insect of a bookshop owner than Rose herself.
"No scratch-and-sniff book," said John, coming back despondently. "I did walk in on Owen and Tosh in the back room, though. Since when was that a thing?”
”Since he scratched-and-sniffed her,” Amy replied. John looked on disapprovingly as the rest of them dissolved into laughter.
The door swung open, and Gwen walked in. Nodding to them, she headed towards to the stairs, but John stopped her. “I would not do that if I were you.”
"Oh, God." Gwen ran a nervous hand through her hair. "I leave for five minutes to get a cup of coffee -“
"Hold on!" Martha raised a hand. "You work in a coffee shop."
"I wanted innuendo-less coffee for once in my life," Gwen sighed. She turned to Rose. "Oh, you’re back! We’ve been hearing John go on about you ever since you left."
“‘Cause it’s - it’s so rare that anyone comes in here,” Rory provided as John scratched his ear uncomfortably.
Rose stared at John awkwardly running a hand through his hair. “I don’t mind,” she said slowly. “Not like I have anywhere better to be.”
John beamed.
"I mean, I have work, but that’s not better. It’s a place. That I have to be. But it’s not a better place. Oh, fuck it, that made no sense at all,” Rose stumbled uncharacteristically loudly.
John’s smile dissolved into an expression of utmost relief, probably at the fact that he wasn’t the only one tripping over his own tongue.
”Hey, it’s the tea snob!” called Jack, sliding down the banister and nearly breaking it. His hair was standing up on end in classic I’ve-just-been-shagged-and-I-don’t-give-a-shit style, for obvious reasons. “Ianto, get your clothes on, it’s John’s girlfriend!” he yelled back up the stairs.
"That’s it, you’re fired," said John Smith with eyes that could kill, incinerate, mutilate, or otherwise maim.
"You don’t have the authority," teased Jack, with the air of someone who’d had this debate at least twenty times before.
"Oi, don’t look at me," cried Gwen to John. "I would, but he makes really good coffee!"
"And he’s a fabulous kisser,” added Ianto, rushing down the stairs two at a time, his buttons drastically out of alignment. “Ianto Jones, office boy - basically I just do things - and people- around the place,” he introduced himself, extending a hand to Rose. “I don’t think we’ve met properly.” He turned to John with a quick, “And if you fire Jack, I go too.”
John Smith threw the feather duster at Ianto, smirking as it hit him straight in the nose.