my charactour spreadsheet for the friends characters is Incredibly Cursed, and i hope the 17.9% of me that’s Not Ross is “being a good, kind, non-manipulative person”
Victorian/regency era AU (three parts) for femslash February which is now in March but shhh whatever. Rose Tyler x Idris, with Eleven and a modified Melody Pond and Jenny--other characters to come in later (Jackie and Pete are here of course). A bit strange, but I hope you enjoy!
Idris Smythe is a rather… odd young woman.
Everyone, no matter their opinions regarding other, more controversial, matters, agrees with such a statement. And where to start? With the curly dark hair she simply refuses to tame, her wide and wild eyes, and that almost palpable wrongness about her, as though something in her mind doesn’t work quite correctly. Really, it is through no fault of the Lady Smythe that her daughter runs with her skirts at her knees and climbs trees and follows her elder brother around like a puppy.
Idris doesn’t care about everyone. She has her brother and she has her Rose, and that is all that matters.
The first time they meet is on Rose’s eighteenth birthday.
Lord Peter Tyler of the Powell Estate hosted (at the... request of his wife) a lavish celebration upon the occasion of his only daughter’s coming-of-age--the perfect excuse for the Lady Jacqueline to invite the other two most powerful families with of-age sons: the Saxons and the Smythes. Lord Jonathon Smythe of the Gallifrey Estate is the second-richest man in the entire kingdom, second only to Lord Tyler himself. According to the Lady Tyler, twenty-three year-old Matthew Smythe is an excellent match.
Rose has been listening to Lady Jacqueline natter on about this Matthew all day, and she is about ready to refuse to attend the ball at all. But that would upset her mother, and when Jacqueline Tyler is upset the entire household is upset--and that is not a thing Rose would wish upon her dear father.
It would be absolutely horrid of her to cause Peter such trouble on her birthday. And Rose really does hate causing her father trouble.
So she sits in silence as the maid pins her golden hair in place and effectively ignores Jackie’s babble.
The party has been in full swing for nearly an hour when Jackie finally stops chattering about Matthew Smythe’s suitability (apparently he’s quite handsome as well as being wealthy) and tells Rose she’s ready.
“Come, my dear, you look stunning,” Jackie exclaims, hovering around Rose. “Oh, they’ll love you. Peter thinks you should be introduced to that young politician, Harold Saxon, but his family doesn’t even own a proper estate,” she prattles on, straightening her powder-pink and cream gown. “I don’t understand the allure of a politician, in any case. They’re slimy liars, each and every one of them.”
“Mother!” Rose reprimands, horrified--she hardly knows Harold Saxon, it’s entirely improper to accuse him of being a liar.
“Well, it’s true,” Jackie defends. “Come on, let’s go.”
The rest of the night is mostly a blur; a haze of dances and wine and laughter with a few clear moments. Rose meets Harold Saxon, a young blonde with a smile dripping with lies and laughter like shattered glass and something dark and twisted in his eyes, first. He takes her hand and turns it over and kisses her wrist, lingers there for a moment, and she yanks her hand away and resists the urge to slap him.
“I will not court Harold Saxon,” Rose tells her father immediately after. “And I never wish to see him again.”
“It will be so,” Pete says with a nod.
She dances with others, her friends Martha and Mickey and even posh Reinette, and then Jackie comes up to her and pulls her aside and there are two people waiting for her.
Jackie vanishes.
The well-dressed young man with floppy dark hair and blue-green eyes grins lopsidedly at her, and she returns it with a smile of her own, extending her hand for the stranger to kiss.
“Lord Matthew Smythe of the Gallifrey Estate, at your service,” he says properly as he lifts her fingers gently to his lips and kisses them. “‘Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance. This is my younger sister Idris.”
Rose’s eyes slide over to the younger girl with the wild dark hair and pale skin and fey eyes in the patchwork gown of pale blue and cream; Idris smiles a shy smile and wiggles her fingertips in a wave. “Goodbye--no. Hello,” she murmurs. “Hello,” she says more clearly. “Is that the right one, Brother?” she asks, eyes drifting to Matthew.
He smiles at her, a sweet-sad-wistful smile. “Yes, you’ve got it right.”
“Hello,” Idris says directly to Rose, stepping forward and dipping into a rough curtsy--she has black boots on beneath her layered skirts, Rose notices. “Hello, Rose. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.”
“Hello, Idris,” Rose says, and she smiles a tongue-touched grin, and something warm-bright-airy bubbles up in her chest, golden and fragile and precious.
The next morning, it’s still there.
They ride out to a lake, just the three of them--Matthew and Rose and Idris and a picnic in a basket. It’s warm, the springtime sun coating everything in liquid gold, Idris’s dark hair frosted in a halo of sunbeams.
(Rose has to fight off a sudden, strange urge to run her fingers through it, to see what sunbeams feel like)
Matthew brings a book and sits a little ways away after they eat the picnic, becoming absorbed by the book almost as soon as he opens it.
Idris picks wildflowers and weaves them into Rose’s hair, and Rose teaches her to knot the blue and pink and yellow blooms into a crown. It’s a little too big for Idris, and keeps slipping down over her eyes, but Idris beams and laughs and the pure and utter joy on her face is infectious.
Addictive, even.
Matthew glances over the edge of the book he’s only pretending to read and smiles ever-so-slightly.
Matthew spends a great deal of his time out in a small cottage deep in the forest that covers much of the land on the Gallifrey Estate. A few months into his and Rose’s courtship--and her and Idris’s slowly-blooming relationship--she finds out why.
They take Idris’s horse down the dirt path. Idris, shockingly (to the rest of society), rides astride. Rose does not--Rose hardly rides at all, and when she does it’s sidesaddle, like any proper lady. So they ride double, Rose’s bare arms twined around Idris’s slender waist, clinging tightly to the younger woman as the dapple-grey mare canters easily through the woods.
The small cottage comes into view far too soon for Rose’s taste, and she reluctantly slides off the back of the mare, smoothing her pink-and-gold dress. Idris dismounts, a single fluid motion, and ties the mare to the post next to the sorrel gelding Rose recognizes as Matthew’s. “Matthew’s here?” Rose confirms, nodding at the gelding.
Idris nods. “Of course brother is here.”
She never calls him Matthew. Just ‘brother’.
Rose can’t help but find the habit adorable. “I didn’t know we were meeting him today,” she says through a smile. “Thought it was jus’ us.”
“It was,” Idris answers, a glimmer of a shy smile on her face (her smiles are so very quiet and shy; it takes lots of convincing and coaxing to draw them out). “And it will be. But now, it is us plus brother plus… you’ll see.”
Rose frowns a little, curious and confused, and follows Idris into the little house. Whatever she was expecting, it was most certainly not what she saw.
Matthew kneels on the rough wooden floor near the fireplace, a handful of small dolls scattered in front of him.. And playing with those dolls is a young blonde girl with wide blue-green eyes.
“Daddy who that?” she asks, smiling sweetly.
“This must be Rose,” another voice responds, as Rose spins to see a younger woman with curly dark-gold hair leaning against the wall. “It truly is a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Melody. I’m Matthew’s wife.”
Rose blinks. “Wife,” she repeats, almost dumbly, finally turning to look at Idris.
Idris is positively beaming. “Brother can never tell, but he has his Melody and his Jenny. You must not tell. If you tell about brother, they’ll find out about us.” Her dark eyes suddenly flash scared-nervous-wary-serious. “You wouldn’t, would you?”
Rose rushes to reassure. “No, Idris. I swear. ‘M not like that, promise.” She looks from Matthew to Melody, and when she speaks her voice is grave and solemn. “I swear on my life I will never reveal you.”
They explain more.
Melody is the daughter of Rory and Amelia Williams; Amelia is the only seamstress in town, and Rory is a tailor. They own a small shop, and Melody grew up aiding them.
Then Matthew came into town to purchase a birthday gift for his mother--a dress, he’d decided--at seventeen and discovered the beautiful, shy sixteen-year-old girl.
They were married, in secret by a trustworthy old priest named Wilf, just a few months later; however, Jenny wasn’t born until nearly two and a half years into their marriage. Somehow, though it’s been basically six years, the Lord and Lady Smythe have yet to discover the truth lying within the walls of the small cottage Matthew loves.
Rose silently wonders how much longer the peace will last.
Two years pass.
Rose is twenty, Idris finally turning eighteen. Little Jenny loves her Aunt Rose. They are a family.
Idris tells Rose she loves her for the first time, and Rose leans in and kisses Idris, soft and sweet and chaste, full of love and hope and promise. “I love you too, Idris Smythe,” Rose murmurs, and kisses Idris again.
Then Idris’s eighteenth birthday comes, and Rose is invited to the ball--of course she is, given that Matthew is courting her. It’s a masquerade, but Rose is still fairly certain she sees Melody among the crowd, dancing with Matthew during one of the waltzes; Rose manages to steal a single dance with Idris. It’s the best part of her evening.
The worst part of her evening comes when she overhears a quiet conversation--
“Finally eighteen. Can we marry her off now?”
“Who would wish for the idiot younger daughter as a match for their son?”
“You raise a fine point, love, but the sooner we’re rid of her the better. I do love our Idris, but if I’m perfectly honest she’s little more than a liability and she terrifies half the servants.”
“Mmm. You know, I’ve heard rumors of…”
The voices trail off as the Lord and Lady of Gallifrey Estate walk away, arms linked, and Rose grits her teeth and clenches her fists in an effort to contain her fury. Idris, her Idris, is not a thing to be given away when she’s lost her value. Idris is worth infinitely more than that--worth more than her parents can comprehend.
Practically vibrating with rage, Rose stalks through the grand ballroom and slips outside into the endless gardens. No one will notice her absence, not now that the wine’s been flowing freely for a few hours. It’s only a few minutes later, however, that she meets someone else.
“Rose?” Idris asks softly, appearing from the shadows--maskless and uncharacteristically vulnerable, hair glowing softly in the liquid silver moonlight. “That you?”
“Yeah,” Rose answers, turning quietly, removing her mask. “‘S me. Had to get away from everyone.”
“As did I.”
They stand in silence for a long moment, then Rose sighs. “Happy birthday, Idris.”
A smile blossoms on Idris’s face, the young woman radiating joy and warmth. “Oh, my Rose. I love you,” she murmurs.
“Quite right,” Rose whispers with a faint laugh. “Would you like your gift now? I’ve been waiting to give it to you all evening.”
Idris nods, and Rose steps closer.
“Here it is, then,” she breathes, and closing the last of the gap between them she kisses Idris and she can taste the starlight on her lips.
