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To anyone else, two in the morning would be an absolutely unacceptable time to be lugging a laundry basket down three flights of stairs and into the empty laundry room in the halls basement. To James Thaddeus Noble, two in the morning was the perfect time to go do laundry. It was a time when the whole rest of the halls would be sleeping, so there’d be no fighting or waiting for a washing machine or dryer, and he could perch himself on one of the unused machines to get some schoolwork done while he waited.
However, he hadn’t expected anyone else to have the same idea as him.
He stumbled to a halt when he saw just the legs and bum of someone sticking out from one of the front-loading washers and had to blink several times to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Which, as it turned out, he most certainly wasn’t. Well, at least there were still plenty of unused machines. Having to share the room for a few minutes with a stranger wouldn’t be that terrible.
Paying them no mind, James turned his attention to the nearest washer and quickly set to work tossing all his socks, vests, and white Oxfords into one before moving to the next one over to dump everything else in. It was only once he started the machines that the person sharing the room with him jumped and yelped -- first in surprise, then in aggravation -- and extracted themselves from the washer.
James glanced over his shoulder, his dark eyes wide in surprise as his eyebrows climbed up to his floppy, dark brown fringe. “Sorry!” he said, cringing a bit as he saw the girl -- young woman, actually -- rub the back of her head. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
The young woman was petite -- if he had to guess he’d say she probably only just came up to his shoulders, maybe a little taller -- and lithe, but with curves. Her blond hair was swept up in a loose ponytail, rogue silky strands framed her soft angelic face and fell into her whiskey-colored eyes. James’ breath caught in his chest as his heart skipped a beat -- it was a cliche saying, but it was true! He literally felt his heart stumble when their eyes met.
“S’okay,” she mumbled, shaking her head as she turned to glare at the washer. “I ‘s just tryin’ to find my lost sock. Didn’t know anybody else was in here.”
“Lost sock?” asked James, eyebrows knitting together.
The young woman gave a half smile as she shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. I threw three pairs of socks in here, an’ when I went to toss everything into the dryer, I only had two an’ a half. I’m missin’ one.”
James’ brown eyes lit up with excitement and he abandoned his own wash to help the mysterious blond. “Well, sure it can’t have gotten far. Though, I will admit, the front load washers are rather notorious for stealing pieces of clothing. Not as much as the dryers, but, they’ve been known to do it. Horrible creatures, that they are.”
A giggle bubbled up out of the young woman, which brought a bright grin to James’ face. Oh, this girl had a beautiful laugh and smile to go with the rest of her perfection. Clearing his throat, James stepped around the washer door and stooped down to look inside. He didn’t see any socks anywhere, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one trapped between the housing and the basket.
“Don’t suppose you have a torch by chance, do you?” he asked, poking his head back out again. He watched in fascination as the young woman’s cheeks turned the most intriguing shade of pink.
“No, sorry.”
James hummed thoughtfully before motioning off towards his laundry basket across the room. “My mobile’s over in the basket. Mind grabbing it for me? Pretty sure I still have the torch app on there.”
He watched her as she hurried across the room and felt his own cheeks flare up as he took in the way her lounge clothes clung to her body. Particularly, the yoga pants that left very little to his -- admittedly overactive -- imagination. Somewhere in the back of his mind, James could hear his roommate’s voice nagging at him to quit ogling the girl and ask for her name. Of course, if Jack really had been down there telling him that, James was sure there would have been some insistence that he try to flirt with her, too.
James quickly shook that thought out of his head and turned back to the washer. Jack was a good guy, but following his advice wasn’t always the smartest thing. Besides, whoever this girl was, she most likely already had a bloke. And if she didn’t, well, then what were the chances she’d even be interested in a “skinny strip of nothing” like himself?
“Here.”
James startled when his mobile phone was suddenly thrust into his line of sight and he looked up to meet those whiskey-colored eyes once more. Blimey, he could get lost in those eyes.
“Ta,” he breathed, still not quite able to look away from the young woman, who was grinning at him with just the tip of her pink tongue poking out from between her teeth. Blinking, he smiled back at her once more and reached to take the phone from her.
“ ‘M Rose, by the way, Rose Tyler. An’ you’re…?”
James lept to his feet, eyes wide and shining just as brightly as his grin. “James,” he answered, hand extended out to shake hers. “James Noble. But uh, most people usually just call me Doctor. I answer to pretty much anything, though, ‘cept, not Jim. Jim’s a rubbish name. Never met a man called ‘Jim’ I’ve ever liked.”
Another giggle fell from Rose’s lips and James found himself wondering what else he could say to make her giggle like that again. It didn’t occur to him that he was still holding her hand until Rose slowly started to pull it back. Pink raced from his cheeks to the tips of his ears as he quickly glanced away and dropped back down to hide his face in the washer again.
He felt more than he saw Rose hop up to sit on the washer next to the one he was investigating for the lost sock.
“Hold on a tick,” Rose quipped from above him, her legs dangling over the edge of the machine. “James Noble? Any relation to Donna Noble? Tall red-head? Gots kind of an attitude until you get to know her?”
James flinched inwardly, but nodded (despite Rose not being able to see the nod). “Yeah,” he answered shortly before pulling back to look up at her again. “How d’you know Donna?”
Again that bit of pink peeked out from between two rows of white as Rose grinned and kicked her bare feet in the air. “She’s my literature tutor. She’s always goin’ on about her little cousin who goes here an’ thinks he’s so smart. Always calls him Spaceman. Is that you?”
While not exactly flattering, ‘Spaceman’ wasn’t the worst thing Donna had ever called him. Still, James sniffed, scrunched his nose and frowned in distaste as he looked back into the washer, shining the light from his phone all around the outer ring of the basket. “S’pose it is, yeah,” he answered into the basket, his voice tinny and distracted even to his own ears.
“‘S funny, she never mentioned that you like to wear ‘Hello Kitty’ jim-jams.”
A string of curses in Latin sprang from James as he smacked the back of his head on the machine housing in his hurry to jump back. Jumping to his feet, he stared slack-jawed at Rose as she tried, and ultimately failed, to keep from laughing. “What?!”
Still laughing, Rose waved a hand down at James’ legs, drawing his eyes down to his dark blue pyjama bottoms covered in the white outlines of the pretty little kitten. Sniffing again, James gave the back of his head one last rub before he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I’ll have you know, Ms. Tyler, that there is nothing wrong with a bloke who is secure enough in his own masculinity to wear ‘Hello Kitty’ jim-jams. It’s a terrible social and gender stereotype that says ‘Hello Kitty’ is just for girls, and I, for one, am finding it my personal mission and duty to crush that stereotype right where it stands, thank you very much!”
Though his body language and tone definitely made him sound very serious on the matter, Rose could only laugh all the harder at him. James wanted to be offended by that, but strangely enough, he found he just couldn’t be. In truth, he’d forgotten he’d been wearing those particular bottoms, so really, it was his own fault that she was laughing at him.
Shoulders slumped, James sighed heavily and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck awkwardly. “Alright, alright, stop laughing. Donna gave them to me for a lark, said I was a skinny strip of nothing who could fit in ladies pyjamas. Gave me these to prove her point.” He groaned mentally as Rose continued to laugh at his expense. Jack was right, he really was hopeless. “ ‘M only wearing them because I’m out of clean clothes and they kind of frown on blokes doing their wash in nothing but their pants and vests.”
His ego officially deflated, James ducked one last time into the washer to retrieve his phone, as he’d dropped it when Rose first brought up his choice in sleepwear. As he moved to pull back, a small patch of white caught his eye. The missing sock. It had gotten itself wedged between the basket and the housing, just like he thought it probably had, though instead of at the bottom, it was three-quarters of the way to the top and out of sight of his torchlight. With a couple of swift tugs, James had the sock retrieved and stood upright again, tossing it with a soggy splat to the metal washer top.
“Your sock, Ms. Tyler,” he grumbled, not daring to lift his eyes to meet Rose’s.
Embarrassed right down to his very core, James turned and moved back to drop the lids down on his two washers. He ignored the sound of Rose hopping down off her perch and kept his attention instead on gathering up his detergent and fabric softener, and making sure he’d put the right amount of money in the machines to keep them working.
“Oi, hold on.”
Rose was suddenly at his side. Her delicate hand on his forearm to keep him from leaving. James tensed at the touch, but he couldn’t help glancing at her again when he heard the quiet tone to her voice. The laughter was gone from her eyes, replaced with something James wasn’t quite sure what to make of. Sadness? Regret, maybe? Guilt? Whatever it was, he was sure he didn’t like it. Those gorgeous eyes should only ever be filled with life, laughter, and happiness.
“ ‘M sorry,” Rose murmured, looking up at him from under long, dark lashes. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I like them, really. They suit you.”
Coming from anyone else, James would have instantly assumed they were lying or mocking him somehow, but for whatever reasons, he really believed Rose when she said that. Still, that didn’t keep him from frowning at her for another few seconds, carefully weighing his options on what to do next that hopefully wouldn’t result in embarrassing himself anymore than he already had. Of course in his attempts to think straight while staring down into Rose’s eyes, he took too long to answer and he could see the rejection and guilt -- it was definitely guilt this time -- well up behind those lashes as Rose pulled away.
“Sorry, I’ll leave you alone now,” she mumbled, already turning to slide past him and start for the door. “Thanks for finding my sock for me.”
James had to act quickly. He couldn’t let Rose walk away thinking, well, whatever horrible things it was she was thinking about herself. Shoving his basket under one arm, he spun around on his heels and tumbled after her, catching her by the elbow before she could make it out into the hall completely.
“Wait!” James could feel his heart racing like a rocket into orbit and swallowed thickly as Rose turned back to look at him. Before he had a chance to even think, words were tumbling out of his mouth. “Have chips with me?”
Rose blinked twice and took half a step back. “It’s two in the morning,” she said, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as she shook her head. “There’s no chippies open at this time of night around here.”
James shook his head, quick to make himself clearer. “Oh! No! No, I know! I didn’t mean tonight, obviously not tonight. Like you said it’s two in the morning, that’d be an absurd time to go for chips. Though, mind you, my roommate’s been known to drive to the city center for chips at four in the morning during finals. So, I suppose it’s not all that absurd. The fact that there’s any chippie open at four in the morning is a bit odd, though. You’d think there’d be one closer to campus that would be open that late, or early, I suppose, depending on how you look at it--”
“Doctor,” Rose’s laughing voice finally cut through James’ rambling and brought him up short. His eyes wide and mouth hanging open just a bit, right hand frozen where it had been tugging on his ear absently, James stood still as a statue as Rose brought her quiet, fond giggles under control.
He watched as she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. And oh there was that pink flushing across her cheeks again as she turned to start off down the hall towards the stairs, her fingers trailing feather light across his arm as she went. But, she never actually answered him, which left him standing confused and a bit disappointed in the middle of the hallway. At least until he heard her addressing him again.
“So why do people call you Doctor, anyway?”
Confusion pushed aside, James bounded down the hall after her, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he reached her side. “Have chips with me tomorrow and I’ll tell you.”
“Wearin’ your ‘Hello Kitty’ jim-jams?” Rose teased with that tongue-touched grin of hers once more.
James blushed but shook his head with a grin of his own. “No, no, no. Wouldn’t be very proper to wear jim-jams on a first date. I do have a very nice Beauty and the Beast T-shirt I can wear, however,” he teased back as he held the stairway door open for her before following her up.
Rose’s delighted, bright laughter filled the stairway and James thought, not for the first time, that two in the morning was definitely the best time in the world to do laundry.