Jackie was finally settled in, and quite nearly asleep, wrapped up in her, thick, warm covers when she heard it—the TARDIS materializing. It wasn't the usual, off in the distance, Rose and the Doctor parked just up the road sound. This time, it was rather closer. Couldn't Rose and the Doctor visit at a normal hour? She knew she'd taught Rose better than this. She growled softly and turned over in bed to look at her bedside clock; it was 3:15 in the morning.

Suddenly, She felt a stutter of panic. What if they were here because something horrible and life threatening had happened to one of them? She could imagine at least twelve horrible things that could have befallen one or both of them; each was worse than the previous one. She couldn't exactly pinpoint when her fear and concern had extended to the Doctor, but it had; he was just as much a member of her family as Rose was - the two of them had become an inseparable unit.

Jackie wasn't a fool; she never asked for any specifics about what they did, but the little bits and pieces she'd received from them, and the last three christmases with them, had given her a fairly clear picture of how dangerous their lifestyle was. The fear crescendoed, blossomed and beat out her earlier frustration; Jackie groaned and rolled out of bed. The cold night air hit her immediately and she shivered. Her new fluffy bed slippers sat on her bedside rug and looked warm and inviting so she slipped her feet into them. Her soft warm bathrobe wasn't hanging on the hook on her door where it normally was she noted with irritation. She decided after a moment that she must have left the bathrobe elsewhere when she'd put away the laundry the previous morning. She padded out of her bedroom and made for the bathroom, the most likely location of the robe.

She'd only made it a few feet out her bedroom when she heard the clatter. It sounded as though someone had broken something in the kitchen. She tensed and froze. What if there was someone else in her kitchen? What if...? She let her thoughts run wild for a few moments before she curbed them in, internally scolding herself for beginning to sound like Bev. The most likely culprits for the broken dishes and loud clattering in the kitchen were the Doctor and Rose. If they really were in trouble she felt certain that they would have called out to her by now. Since they hadn't, she decided that she could safely leave her previous fear behind and continue her search for her bathrobe; the Doctor and Rose could wait as long as she damn well wanted them to as they were the ones who'd so rudely awoken her in the dead of night. With that thought, she walked into her bathroom and began tossing the linen closet. Because the universe was apparently interested in irritating her tonight, the bathrobe was all the way at the bottom of the stack of linens. She put the silky warm robe on and decided to leave the piles of towels and sheets on the bathroom floor to deal with in the daytime.

The clanging and clattering had continued the entire time she been tossing the linen closet. It was a wonder that they hadn't woken any of the neighbors with the racket they were making. Robed up, marginally more awake, and filled with irritation, Jackie made for the kitchen.

The TARDIS was parked in the cramped kitchen, filling the room with that low, ominous humming that always seemed to emanate from it. The doors were propped open and Rose was struggling to get through them. The Doctor was an unconscious deadweight in Rose's arms. It seemed that some combination of the TARDIS doors and the Doctor's lanky body that had knocked over all of the dishes and caused the ruckus. Jackie's panic returned abruptly at the sight.

"Oh God. Rose, what happened?" she asked, gesturing at the unconscious Doctor, "Is he going to be okay?"

Rose bit her lip and, despite the low light, Jackie could make out the beginnings of tears on her face. Then, without warning, Rose began to laugh. Hysterically.

"Rose?" Jackie asked.

Rose continued to laugh, and nearly dropped the Doctor. His arm managed to hit and break a sixth dish.

"Rose," Jackie prompted sharply, wondering suddenly if the two of them had been out drinking.

Eventually, Rose calmed down, "Little help here?" she asked.

Jackie made no move to help.

"Please?" Rose said, "He's way heavier than he looks."

Jackie let Rose struggle a little while longer before finally coming over to help her. Together they managed to get the Doctor into the living room and laid out on the couch.

"Now," Jackie said, "What's got you here bothering me in the middle of the night? Have the two of you been out drinking yourselves silly?"

"It's the middle of the night?" Rose said, "I'm fairly certain that I set the chronometer to get us here at 15:00." She furrowed her brow in confusion.

"It's 3:00," Jackie said.

"Shit," Rose said, "I'm sorry."

"No use in thinking about that anymore," Jackie said, "Just... tell me what happened."

"We weren't out drinking. Not really," Rose said, "We were on this planet U5780, at this party because - well, it doesn't matter really."

"And.." said Jackie, gesturing for Rose to continue with her story.

"Someone slipped him something," she said, "It was pretty instantaneous. He got all wonky and tripped and fell. And then - then..."

This seemed to be the part of the story that Rose was finding funny, because she took a long pause and seemed to be stifling a laugh.

"He- He turned into a frog!" she said.

"A frog?" Jackie said, mildly impressed. What did it say about her life that this wasn't even the weirdest thing she'd heard in the last month? "An honest to God Earth frog? Not a weird alien one?" she added. It crossed her mind that Rose could be messing with her, but it didn't seem particularly likely - the Doctor would be the one more likely to do that.

Rose nodded, giggling again, "a real slimy, bumpy gross one."

"I'd have paid good money to see that," Jackie said.

Rose cackled at that image and then continued with her story, "So I saved him with this antidote that he told me how to make."

Jackie held up a hand, "Hold up Rose," she said, "He could still talk to you as a frog?"

Rose gave her mum one of the Doctor's patented of course, you're just being obtuse looks, "Yeah," she said, dragging the word out.

Jackie shook her head then, "So why'd you come back now?" she asked.

Rose was no longer giggly; her face became serious, "This frog drug is definitely how those sentient resource smugglers were grabbing people out of the clubs and bars. There's no way that the Doctor's drugging was an accident: He's a specimen worth a great deal of credits, and we were getting close to busting them," she said, "An' I wasn't about to try and take the whole operation on while I had him as deadweight tagalong. Besides, he said that there might be some nasty side effects to the antidote. I just figured that It'd be safer to deal with that here."

"Oh," Jackie said, "Right then. But the two of you are safe now?"

"Yeah," Rose said, "I'm pretty sure the slavers can't time travel."

The Doctor's head was laying in Rose's lap and she was running her fingers through his hair. She'd never admit it aloud, but Jackie thought they were really quite sweet.

"You're planning to go back there when he's better aren't you?" Jackie said.

Rose didn't respond. There was something in her face that Jackie didn't want to attempt to decipher, so instead she got up and made to leave the room for a minute.

"I'm going to make some tea love," she said, "Do you want any?"

Rose looked up at her and smiled, "Thanks mum, that'd be lovely."

"Course'," Jackie said, "Earl grey good?"

"Yeah."

Jackie was nearly done with the tea when she heard it: The sound of a frog croaking, followed by Rose's hysterical laughter. Tea kettle and mugs in hand, Jackie returned to the living room.

The Doctor was awake again; he'd jumped away from Rose and was sitting on the opposite end of the sofa. He was looking at Rose, intently, and quite seriously, and Rose was laughing. Jackie couldn't make heads or tails of the exchange until a minute later. The Doctor croaked - a bit mournfully too if she were any judge. Rose was still laughing, and Jackie figured that she would be unable to get a straight answer out of her, so she turned to the croaking Doctor.

"What's this now love?" she asked.

The Doctor made a face and croaked again, moving his hands frantically, pantomiming for something.

Jackie squinted, "what's that you want?"

The Doctor pantomimed again, more furiously this time.

"Oh!" Jackie said, in realization, "You want a pen and paper, don't you?"

He nodded, letting out a pair of high pitched croaks, which sent Rose into another fit of laughter. Jackie hurried out of the room and returned moments later with a sticky note and a second-hand car salesman's promotional pen. She handed them over to the Doctor, and he began to write.

He passed Jackie the post-it when he was finished, looking at her expectantly. She burst into laughter, joining Rose. Both women were laughing so hard they cried. The Doctor scowled at both of them, croaking in the most manly, disapproving manner possible. He got up and walked to where Jackie had been standing and retrieved his post-it note.

The post-it read:

I'm not going to be able to communicate verbally in any other manner but croaks for the next couple of days.