Chapter Text
Why, Rose wondered, glaring at the ice-blue envelope sitting on her kitchen table, plan a Christmas wedding if you weren't going to use a red-and-green theme? If you were going to interrupt the already-busy holiday season, the least you could do is make it feel Christmas-y. For a wedding with a generic "winter" theme, you could push your nuptials off to January when things weren't quite as hectic.
She could distinctly remember telling John exactly that as they had planned their own Christmas wedding.
"We'll have a Christmas tree at the front behind the minister, a great big one, and the ornaments will be the favors!" she had enthused as she leaned against him on their sofa. "We'll do multi-coloured fairy lights-"
"Wouldn't white be better?" he'd asked, interrupting. "They're more traditional."
"I know, but I like multi-coloured, they're more fun and more seasonal. White fairy lights get put up at every wedding, but these will be totally Christmas-y."
Her envelopes were holly-berry-red, the invitations green, and her bridesmaids dresses had been pretty cocktail dresses in red satin. The traditional and simple cake-and-punch reception was a punch-and-Christmas-cookie reception (all cookies made by the bridal party), and the first dance was "Give Love on Christmas" by the Jackson 5.
Or it would have been.
Instead, a year to the day after the wedding Rose should have had, John was getting married in an icy blue-and-silver ceremony that he and Rose couldn't have afforded in a hundred years, but Rose's cousin Jeanne could.
It had been mid-November the previous year when, in the midst of a huge flurry of wedding plans, John had begged her to take a night off.
"We haven't seen our friends in ages, Rose. Ali doesn't like anyone but you and me, so he hasn't been out in as long as we have, and your cousin never comes to England anymore. We have our whole lives to spend with each other, we shouldn't neglect our mates."
So Rose had, against her better judgement, agreed to set their friend Alistair up with her cousin Jeanne and then go on a double-date with the pair of them.
She should have known there would be trouble when the argument had started about where they were going to go on this brilliant idea of John's.
"Ali and I work at the gallery, John, we don't want to go there in our off-hours. Why can't we go to the pub? It'll be trivia night- between you and Ali no one will be able to touch us. It'd be fun!"
"Jeanne is in from Paris, Rose. She's not going to want to go to our grubby local, she's going to want to do something classy. Besides, don't you want to show off your gallery to her?"
"Sure I do, but I don't want to play tour guide when I'm on a date."
"The date's not for us, Rose, it's for Jeanne and the Doctor. You and I are just there to chaperone- we've got our whole lives together, these two are just starting!"
"Couldn't we go to one of the other galleries or museums? Anywhere but ours, please?"
"You know we can't afford that. Come on, sweetheart, isn't it worth it if Jeanne and Ali find what we have together? Isn't true love worth any price?"
He'd convinced her, and, though Ali had been surprised at the plan when Rose had told him at work the next day, he too had agreed.
Rose should have known that everything was going to go wrong from the first moment Jeanne had seen Ali.
"But he's so old, Rose!" Jeanne said in her patently-false French accent. She'd only grown up three miles from the flat Rose's mother still lived in, after all.
"Old?" Rose had been taken-aback. Ali was several years older than she was, but she'd never considered him old. He had a classic, ageless quality about him, like a Roman statue. "He's only thirty-eight," she objected.
"That is more than ten years older than me, ma petite, and almost twenty years older than you. Hasn't he got friends his own age? And that nose! So unfortunate. Your darling John is a much better catch. A pity you've already clipped that angel's wings."
God, but it should have been obvious- all the signs were there. After Jeanne had been unconscionably rude to Ali, Rose had asked John to entertain her while she soothed her friend. He had done so and, by the time Rose and Ali had rejoined the other two, they had been speaking rapid French to each other with their heads together, Jeanne clinging to John's arm. Rose hadn't even known John spoke French.
Two weeks later, Rose had had to cancel her reservation at the little hall that had been intended to host the happiest day of her life. She hadn't gotten the deposit back.
Really, it took a lot of nerve for John and Jeanne (and wasn't that just too too twee) to invite her to their wedding, except that Rose knew everyone in the family had been invited. Jeanne hadn't added to the insult by asking her to be a bridesmaid or inviting her to the hen's night, but it still stung. December 18 should have been Rose's first anniversary with John. Instead, if her mother got her way, Rose would spend the day in an uncomfortable dress watching John marry someone else.
Rose needed a drink.
As though this thought was a cue, her phone vibrated on the table with a text.
Tell me you haven't checked your mail yet, and if so, DON'T
Rose almost smiled to see Ali's name at the top of her phone's screen, and knew exactly what he was on about.
You're too late, I've already seen it. You don't have one, do you?
Ali had been John's friend longer than hers- it'd been his connection to John that had gotten her the job at the gallery in the first place- but he'd chosen her side in the split and had never looked back. As far as she knew, he hadn't so much as spoken to John in a year.
No, but Donna just got hers. I'm on my way over, and I'm bringing vodka. Doctor's orders.
Rose considered telling him she was fine, that she'd rather be alone, and that she couldn't drink because she had to work in the morning, but, save for her work schedule, it would all have been a lie. She told herself it wouldn't have mattered anyway- Ali was as stubborn as they came, when he wanted to be, and nothing she could say would sway his mind.
Twenty minutes later, there was a perfunctory knock on her door before the handle was turned and Ali walked in, dressed in black jeans, red jumper, and black leather jacket, a bag from Tesco and one from the liquor store hanging from one of his hands, and a greasy bag that Rose recognized as coming from the corner chippy cradled in the curve of his elbow.
"I've got popcorn, hot chocolate mix, chips, and vodka," he announced without even saying hello.
"How did you manage that? Has that old car of yours turned into a time machine since last I checked?" Rose asked.
"I was in the neighborhood anyway," Ali explained, making himself at home in her kitchen by putting away the groceries he'd brought. "I'd already thought I might drop by tonight. Jack called me this morning."
Rose groaned and dropped her head onto the back of the couch. Jack had called her the previous night to tell her that he would be standing up with John at his wedding, and to apologize, practically in tears, for doing so.
She told Ali the same thing she'd told Jack: "I never asked anyone to stop being friends with John, and I wouldn't want them to anyway. It's fine."
Ali didn't say anything, just grunted and closed the last cabinet before pulling the two styrofoam trays of fish and chips out of the last bag and setting them on the breakfast table. The invitation was still sitting there, and he picked it up, narrowing his eyes as he realized what he must be holding.
"Blue and silver is passe," he said as he pulled the lovely, lightly metallic silver card from the envelope.
Rose snorted. As though Ali would have even the slightest idea what was was in fashion or not.
He raised his eyebrows once his sharp blue eyes reached the name of the church and reception hall.
"They're sparing no expense, are they?" he mused.
"I'm sure Jeanne's daddy is bankrolling the whole thing," Rose said, trying hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
"I've never understood why people spend that much money on a wedding. It should be an intimate, important day, not a day to show off how much money you've got, I think," Ali said, tossing the card into the kitchen and bringing the chips to Rose on the sofa. He returned to the kitchen and made a cup of hot chocolate with a healthy dose of vodka in it, and a cup of tea without, and returned to the couch.
"Mum called. She says I have to go," Rose said, reaching up to take the cup of chocolate.
"She's wrong," Ali said, bluntly.
"She says that Jeanne is family and if I don't Nana will disinherit me."
"Family's overrated, and you can't miss money you never had. Besides, it's rude to show up the bride, and you're twice as beautiful as she is just sitting in your jimjams at home."
Rose gave a slightly choking laugh- she'd been fighting off tears all afternoon- and leaned against him, cheek pressed to the cool leather of the jacket he was still wearing.
"You know what'd be ideal? If I could go to that bloody wedding looking perfectly gorgeous, on the arm of someone fantastically good-looking, just blissfully happy. The kind of happy that shines out of you, you know? It's petty, but that's the only thing that would make it worth it to go to that damn thing."
"Pity Jack'll be busy, he'd fit the bill perfectly." Ali's voice was oddly bitter over the statement.
"Jack's too obvious a ploy. Everyone would know I was just trying to make someone jealous, especially since he wouldn't be able to stop himself flirting with everyone in sight. No… I need someone no one would expect."
"Clara?" Ali suggested.
Rose laughed. "No, I don't think anyone would buy her either, unfortunately."
"Who then?"
"What about... you?"
Ali blinked at her for a moment, then plucked the still-full cup of hot chocolate out of her hands and took a sniff, though he'd obviously watched her take only a sip. "Did you start drinking before I got here, or are you just mad?"
Rose squirmed around to look up into his face, brown eyes wide. "What's mad about it?"
"I thought you wanted to go with someone… what was your word? Oh yeah, 'fantastically good-looking.'"
"And who says you aren't?" Rose asked, frowning.
"Are you taking the piss? My mirror, every bloody morning!"
"Remind me to get you a new mirror for Christmas," Rose said. "Besides, the aesthetics of the thing matter less than John and Jeanne believing it. I think you're the only person who could believably fake being in love with me."
Ali scowled. "Never thought I'd hear my gallery designer telling me the aesthetics of a thing don't matter. Besides, it's not me that has to sell anything, it's you- you're the one who has to be supremely happy, and no one would believe you were madly in love with this daft old face for a second."
Rose scowled back. "Make fun of my best friend's looks one more time and I'll slap you silly-"
"And there's that too, your mother would slap me into next week!"
"She would not! Not if I were happy!"
"And who says you could act like you're happy, eh?"
Rose slapped her mug down on the coffee table and stood up, glaring down at him. "Stand up, you lump," she ordered.
Ali blinked, then stood, facing her.
Rose stepped into his personal space, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, her face was completely different- her eyes were sparkling, she was grinning that grin she had with her tongue tucked into the corner, she leaned into him, pressing her breasts against his arm, even as she reached down and laced her fingers with his.
"John, Jeanne, great to see you, congratulations. You two remember Ali, of course, my boyfriend?"
She reached the hand that wasn't laced up with his across their bodies, resting it on his chest in a possessive, intimate gesture that seemed to come naturally to her.
Then she turned and looked up at Ali, her smile suddenly impish rather than flirtatious, though her eyes continued to sparkle.
"What do you think?"
Alistair thought he could hardly breathe. As many times as he told himself (and it was at least five times a day, working beside her) that Rose didn't think of him like that, seeing her look at him with that smile and those eyes had stopped his heart, only to have her touch send it racing double-time, and hearing the word 'boyfriend' come out of her mouth with regards to him had sent his stomach soaring through time and space.
"What would you tell Jack? Mickey? Amy?"
"Mickey and Martha aren't going to the wedding, nor are Amy and Rory. It's Christmas, they all have plans. Jack… well Jack can know the truth. He knows us well enough to figure it out, and he wouldn't tell a secret like that."
Jack knew him well enough all right: he knew Alistair wouldn't be acting even a tiny bit.
"Honestly, Ali, it'd just be John and Jeanne we'd be lying to, and neither of us sees them more than absolutely necessary anymore anyway."
Alistair could feel himself weakening. "John, Jeanne, and your entire family," he objected.
"If necessary, I'll tell Mum that we broke up."
"Then she will slap me."
Rose smiled at him. "Don't worry, you big baby, I'll protect you." Her face went serious in a moment. "Please, Ali. I'm going to have to go, and I can't go alone, I just can't. I can't face them single."
Ali stopped, just a bit surprised. Rose had, for a year, put on a brave face about the end of her relationship with John. She had always been kind, always been compassionate, and had never spoken an ill word about him or Jeanne, even as engagement announcements, bridal showers, and save the date cards had begun to appear. It was easy to forget that Rose had been in love with John, and for all she was brave, and clever, and kind, she was also a woman with pride that had been badly damaged.
"Alright," he said, finally, unable to withstand her eyes any longer, even knowing that he was probably condemning himself to the worst Christmas season of his entire life. "Alright, I'll do it. RSVP plus one."
Rose grinned and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him over and over on his cheek.
"Thank you, thank you!" she cried, right into his ear.
He made no move to stop her, to pull her away, or to shush her. An armful of Rose Tyler was, perhaps, the sweetest thing he'd ever known in all his life.