This is the first of (hopefully) many one-shots inspired by the Doctor's hatred of anything domestic. This one features the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler. Please enjoy!

Keep the Domestics Outside, Thank You: Milk Run

"Rose, I have an important question to ask you."

"What is it, Doctor?"

"Is milk necessary?"

The Doctor was standing sullenly with his arms crossed, leaning against the console. The green light of the TARDIS was casting mysterious shadows across his features. Rose stood in the threshold of the corridor leading from the Console Room to the rest of the never-ending ship. Her eyes were still heavy with the weight of a good night's sleep, but her jeans and hooded sweatshirt proved that she was ready for adventure. The Doctor's odd question forced her minty breath to escape her in the form of a chuckle.

"I'm serious. Is milk necessary or is it not?"

"We're out, aren't we?"

"It lasts such a short time!"

The Doctor's leather-jacket-wearing-arms-crossed-shadowy-mysterious-cool-guy persona drifted away as he let his arms fall to his aides and allowed his voice to rise a few pitches.

Rose's face turned smug as she fiddled with her nails. "I guess we'll have to make a pit-stop."

"Which leads me to my initial question..."

"Doctor, we need milk for tea. We both do."

The Doctor stood silently with his mouth slightly agape. "I had forgotten about that."

"We don't even have cream?"

"Nope."

"Better get to it, then."

The Doctor gave her one last pleading look, but her force fields were up and she wasn't taking "no" for an answer. A moment later, the groan of the TARDIS marked their departure. Rose joined the Doctor at the console, struggling not to smile as she stared at his still, stoic expression. The TARDIS finally landed but the Doctor was still staring at the time rotor, still grinding to a stop as it made it's final downwards descent. "It's my turn, isn't it?"

"Yep."

The Doctor turned to Rose, who was already holding out a few notes for him and looking pleased with herself. No getting out of this one. He took the money and shoved it into his pants' pocket. Rose finally let her tongue come between her teeth as she broke into a smile. The Doctor glared back, finding it difficult not to smile along with his companion, but finding it even more difficult to allow his stubbornness to fade away. "I'll be back in a mo'."

Hands in his pockets, he sauntered towards the doors. "Get two litres this time!"

"Got it!"

He closed the doors harder than was necessary. Stupid milk. Stupid cows. He could be saving the universe. What was he doing walking into a silly little supermarket? Where was the milk, anyway?

He had been so caught up in his thoughts, he hadn't bothered looking for the one item that he was here for. He looked up at a sign above the closest aisle.

Bread

Cereal

Muffins

Nope. The next aisle held soup and sauce. The next had canned goods. Finally he found the freezers. The air was always a bit too nippy for his liking in this part of the store, which just added to the issues he had with getting milk. He passed by the ice creams and the frozen fruit. Where was the milk? The frozen chips passed him by and then he found himself at the end of the aisle. Confused and annoyed, he glanced to his left and right. Nobody was in sight except a young, sleepy looking woman and her crying child. Another irksome element to add to this shopping trip. Finally he decided to leave the freezer section and find somewhere a bit warmer to think through his problem. When he came to the aisle with canned foods, he instantly turned down it. Slowing his pace now that he wasn't freezing, the Doctor tried to think through where the milk must be. All logic he had come to, however, disappeared when he heard the crying child behind him. The noise was growing louder every second. The Doctor glanced behind him and saw the boy racing towards him. Jumping out of the way, he watched the boy rush to one point in the aisle and begin climbing the shelf.

A look to the mother told the Doctor that she wasn't paying attention to her crazy son. Her eyes were closing and if she weren't standing, the Doctor would've guessed that she was asleep. A few clinking sounds turned the Doctor's head back to the boy, who was now three feet off the ground and accidentally kicking cans to the hard, tiled floor. He knelt down and began picking up the dropped cans from the floor, noticing with a wince that some were definitely going to have to be paid for by the boy's poor mother, but a more dire circumstance arrived without warning. The Doctor heard a squeak like shoes on a wet floor and, before his brain had formed what was happening, the boy's shadow was coming over the Doctor. Without hesitation, the Doctor threw the cans still in his hand aside and let the boy fall into his hands roughly. Now the boy was really crying. The Doctor set him down lightly and put his hands on the boy's small shoulders. "It's alright, I got ya."

The boy looked at his mother, who had woken and was now sprinting to her son's side. "Oh my goodness, thank you so much, sir. Jeremy, don't climb things like that, you know that's dangerous!"

The Doctor stood and smiled as the woman embraced her child, who had thankfully stopped crying. After pulling away from Jeremy, the woman stood and hugged the Doctor, forcing a slight blush onto his face. "Thank you so much."

"It was nothing."

"No, I want to give you something. What are you shopping for?"

"Milk."

"It's on me."

"No, really, that's fine."

"Let me."

"I don't need thanks."

"Come on."

The woman tugged both Jeremy and the Doctor down the aisle and to the front of the store, where the Doctor was shocked to see the bottles of milk. The woman picked up two litres of the milk and handed them to the Doctor, slipping him a few pounds as she passed it off. "Thank you, sir. Jeremy thanks you, too, isn't that right, Jeremy?"

"Yeah."

Jeremy wasn't even paying attention to his mother's words, but the Doctor didn't mind. He let the small family go back to their shopping with a grin on his face. Lugging the two bottles of milk to the conveyer belt, the Doctor couldn't help but think about what could've happened if he hadn't had to come get milk today. If he hadn't picked this day to land on. If Rose, who knew where the milk was, had gone instead. A shiver ran down his spine as he handed a less-than-enthusiastic teenager the woman's money and watched the girl bag the milk, a look of utter depression on her face. The Doctor decided it was time for one more little act of kindness. "I'll tell you what," he read the girl's name tag, "Louise." The girl's eyes widened with shock, but a smile played at her lips. "I absolutely love your hair color." The girl's hair was dyed a variation of purples and blues and greens. "You've got the entire universe on your head."

Louise's eyes joined her smile. "My dad doesn't think so. He thinks I should change it back to normal."

"There's no such thing as normal."

"There is in hair color."

"Alright, but normality is irrelevant if different makes you happy."

Louise's mouth fell open slightly at the Doctor's words. Her hands seemed to freeze in midair. The Doctor burst into a wide grin as he took his bags and began walking away, Louise's eyes watching him as if he were a god.

The TARDIS stood on the corner of the supermarket, surrounded by dumpsters and waste bins. The Doctor stealthily put both bags in one hand and opened the door, which was, thankfully, not locked by Rose. He hadn't bothered taking his key. He continued through the open space, feeling the familiar humrough him as the grating creaked with his footsteps. "Rose, I'm back!"

He entered the kitchen with the milk and set it in the fridge. Behind him, at the small wooden table always set for breakfast, Rose was giving him a knowing look. "What?"

"You've been gone a while."

"Had some things to take care of."

"Can you ever go somewhere without changing someone's life?"

"What do you mean?"

Rose took her phone out and played a message. The voice belonged to Louise.

"Rose, I just had the best shift of my life! This man came in and started saying all these things and...oh my goodness he changed the way I look at life. Rose, if you ever see a guy wearing a leather jacket, has real short hair, super pretty blue eyes, you yell for me. I think he's an angel, Rose. I really do."

The Doctor couldn't hold his smile back. Rose began nodding her head as she put her phone away. "An angel."

"She must be talking about someone else."

"Pretty blue eyes?"

"Exactly; not me. I've got dull blue eyes."

"You're such a bad liar."

"I know."

They shared a hearty laugh. It was one of those pure moments that they could just be together and celebrate the universe and the fact that they had been able to meet each other when they did. When they both needed it most. "Tell ya what, though."

"What?"

"Looks like you can be the one to get milk now."

The Doctor faked a slight grimace, but he couldn't hold it for long before his smile returned. After all, maybe, just once in a while, life could all change from a little moment of domesticity.