A/N - Something light hearted, featuring lots of unhelpful shoes.
The Doctor sat down disgruntled. He had been searching through shoes for the best part of 4 hours. Rose was asleep; bless humans and their need for frequent sleep. He was glad he didn't really need to sleep. He had so much to do. Right now, however, his priority was finding his shoes. He knew why he couldn't find them of course. Rose had decided to introduce a new sorting system like she had used back in Henricks. It had seemed like a good system and for the first 200 pairs Rose had seemed enthusiastic, the next 200 a bit bored and then 37 later had wandered into the console room and demanded an adventure. So the first 437 pairs were easy to find. No, the problem was, The Doctor had over 8000 pairs of shoes. Enough for most major planets and fashion trends, and then he had about 15000 for female companions. "Really should stop letting them buy new shoes." he thought to himself.
He had sorted through shoes in category A-D and now he was finally on E. E for Earth, well once he had got through Eaaa, Eabeth, Ealka, Eabermentha and all the other places before Earth alphabetically. The problem was if you didnt go through the shoes often they kind of meshed together, sometimes shoes from Alzarius would end up with Mars.4 and it was so annoying! that was the problem with living ships kept moving, growing, changing and developing so nothing was in the same place a month later.
"This is bonkers." he muttered as a pile of elven shoes fell on top of him. He decided new tactics were in order. He stood up, turned round and walked out of the aisle. He climbed up to the top of aisle D and looked down at E. From his pocket he took 5 Quarian Darts. He muttered what he was looking for and then dropped the darts.
3 darts flew to various places in the E aisle, one flew into the door and one flew straight down into his foot. "Owwwwwwww!" he yelled, hopping up and down holding his foot. "I knew where they were!" he yelled pulling the dart out. He paused for a moment to look at the dart which was flashing green before sliding down a ladder. He limped across to the closest dart which was flashing blue. "No, these are suede coppers from Sweden in 2047." he muttered to the dart. "Useless things!" he shouted annoyed and in pain.
He looked right to see another dart glowing orange. "Should really learn what the colours mean." he whispered under his breath. He shuffled over to the orange dart and pulled out a pair of clogs. "Hmm" he said "Well, at least it's the right planet…"
He noticed the other dart was about 30 pairs upwards. He pulled a ladder over and started climbing. It had turned rainbow coloured. The Doctor smiled, sure that this would be the pair he was looking for. They weren't. Chameleon shoes made by All Star. "Ok, closer in style, less close in decade." He held on to them meaning to show them off to Rose when they next went out, maybe when they visited Silus when she woke. "Nah." he muttered. "We can go to Aridium 49 when she wakes. Beautiful sunrise, in green." He wandered slowly towards the corridor desperately trying to remember where his shoes were.
He looked up to see the 5th dart quivering and pulsating dark green stuck in the door. He pulled it and it immediately flew straight into the door again. He grinned, maybe this dart actually could fly true… He grabbed the dart again and yanked the door open before letting go. It zoomed off down the corridor and the Doctor ran after it, forgetting the pain in his foot.
The dart flew left, right, right, up some stairs, down a very long corridor, left, left, right, right, down some stairs, right, past the bins, left, down some more stairs right, past the console corridor, left and then imbedded itself in another door. Now pulsating a lighter shade of green and still quivering. The Doctor reached for the handle and then stopped. He looked confused, but then knocked.
After a moment the door opened and a groggy looking Rose opened the door. She woke up slightly when the dart wriggled out of her door and flew past her head quickly.
"Um, Rose. Do you have my red shoes in there?"
"The converses?" she looked guilty "Yes."
"Why?"
"I was just going to…"
"What?"
"Try and fix the hole in them."
The Doctor laughed and Rose smiled, still a little sleepy. "Rose, have we not already established that your Mother is better at repairing shoes than you?"
"Well yes, but I thought I would try superglue." They both laughed.
"I'll get the Brancillian regurgitating beetles to have a go at multiplying the material round the hole and combining it to fix them."
She smiled and grabbed the shoes from a bookcase. The Doctor pulled out the dart which was now bright green and smiled. Reunited with his Red Shoes.