Mirror Mirror

"Doctor!"

"DOCTOR!"

The Doctor had been up from his chair and out of his room before he realized that the shout didn't have the 'oh god, it has a weapon' quality he was used to but rather the 'someone has been leaving the butter out again and it's melted all over my new magazine' quality that was oh so much worse. Not that it had been him who had left the butter out. He was blaming fluctuations in reality for that. However, just at the moment he felt a little silly for momentarily over-reacting.

Rose was standing in the middle of her bedroom, her hands on her hips and a very displeased expression on her face. He leaned against the doorway in his most relaxed manner. No, no one over-reacting here.

"You shouted?"

"Yes." Rose didn't even look at him, she was frowning at something away to the left of the door. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

"THAT!" She pointed at something he couldn't see and the Doctor had to come farther into the room to spot the thing standing in a shadowed corner.

"A mirror?" he glanced back at Rose, wondering just what she was having fits about.

"No kidding. But what is it doing in my room?" Rose demanded irritably, sounding rather too much like her mother for the Doctor's liking.

The Doctor stepped closer and finally got a good look at the thing. It was a free-standing oval mirror taller than he was, the rim of a dark wood carved into... He looked closer. It was carved into some taloned thing that curled around it, clutching the mirror with far too many claws and snarling at them from the top with very long, pointed teeth. More clawed feet were splayed on the floor underneath of it to keep it up.

The whole thing was truly hideous.

"Oh, that mirror."

"That mirror?" Rose asked. "Okay, first, where did it come from? And second, why did you feel the need to put it in here?"

"Well, you see," the Doctor said. "I didn't."

"It got in here all by itself, did it?" she asked sarcastically.

"Yup." He couldn't help but grin at her growing impatience. She was cute when she was annoyed. Although she'd probably kill him on the spot if he was ever stupid enough to say so.

Rose heaved the sigh of the long suffering. "Don't just stand there smirking at me. Explain! What, is it alive or something? Does it get up and walk around on those claws?" She frowned at the mirror again, clearly not fond of the idea. Actually, if it came to that the Doctor wasn't so fond of the idea of that thing getting up and walking around either.

"I don't think so," he hastened to assure her, trying to banish the image from his own mind. "Truth be told, I don't actually remember where it came from any more. Someone brought it onboard at some point, but I can't seem to recall who it was. Thing is, I've never been able to get rid of the damn thing. I've tried everything - shoved it out an airlock in the middle of space once. Didn't work. It just turned up in the library a couple of weeks later."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"Scout's honour!"

"You wouldn't let me bring that stuffed alligator thing on board your precious TARDIS, but you let someone bring that thing in here?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I must have been a great deal more permissive in my youth. I can't imagine why."

"So, can we go back and get..."

"No."

"It wasn't nearly as ugly as that!"

"No!"

"And I'm sure the alligator thing wasn't possessed," she sulked.

The Doctor frowned at the mirror. "I don't actually think it's possessed. I think the TARDIS likes it. It's like her toy or something, but that's just a theory."

"It gives me the creeps."

"It's just a mirror. And I'm almost sure it isn't possessed." He turned on her quickly, contemplation of the mirror gone and grinned at her. "Well, as long as that's sorted. Goodnight!" he said far too cheerfully.

"Oh, hell no!" Rose said before he could even reach the door.

"Problem?" he asked innocently. Or tried to. The gleam in his eyes gave him away.

"If you think that I'm sleeping in here with that... that thing looking at me, you're out of your mind." Rose grabbed her pajamas and ran for the door. "I'm sleeping in your room."

"My room?" the Doctor said, all surprised innocence as Rose moved past him into the hallway. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"Oh no, you don't," Rose objected as he tried to follow her. She folded her arms and stood barring his path. "You are sleeping in there."

The Doctor froze. "What?"

"It's just a mirror," she said in perfect imitation of his earlier tone. "And you're almost sure it's not possessed. So, you get to sleep in the room where it is." She grinned at him in a disturbingly good imitation of himself.

The Doctor glanced back at the snarling face above the mirror and his earlier smugness disappeared. "Alright, I take it back. I do think it's possessed and there is no way I'm sleeping in the same room with it. Satisfied?"

"I don't know," Rose said. "Are there any other little things like this that you should tell me about?"

"No," the Doctor said. "There's just the mirror and I promise, I hadn't seen it in so long I'd almost forgotten it was around."

"You sure?"

"Weeellllll... there is this lamp..."

"Actually, no," Rose interrupted him. "I don't want to know after all." She shuddered as she looked at the mirror. "How long until that leaves?"

"It shouldn't be too long," the Doctor said considering as he closed Rose's bedroom door behind them. "It never seems to stay anywhere for more than a few days. Well, except the time it stayed in the library for nearly a month, but I'm sure that was an anomaly."

Rose groaned and headed down the hall. "Why did I ever assume that the furniture in a ship that's bigger on the inside than the outside was going to stay put?"

The Doctor grinned. "I have no idea."

"Bags on the shower."

"Hey, it's my room!"

"Yeah, so I'm the guest. Bagsy!"

The argument became muffled as they entered the Doctor's room and he closed the door behind them.

The End

I think. :-)