A timer dinged, and the Doctor scanned the surfaces of the TARDIS's galley kitchen looking for oven mitts.
They were in modern London. Rose had gone out, and he'd managed to escape the clutches of her mother by claiming critical engine repairs that had to be done immediately, or else mankind was doomed, reality would rip itself apart, etc, etc. He'd thrown off some nonsensical technical jargon in self-defense and escaped as quickly as he could once Jackie's eyes glazed over.
Having defaulted to his standard practice of cooking while Rose was occupied (sleeping, usually), the Doctor scoured the kitchen for his oven mitts, rushing so as not to over-brown his muffins. He gazed around and saw one in the napkin basket behind him, which he snatched up. He fitted the mitt onto his left hand while trying to recall where he'd chucked the other after his last bout of baking. After going through a mental tick-list of all the times he'd been stuck in here waiting for Rose to wake up, he remembered chucking one on top of the fridge during some post-burned-by-a-baking-pan floundering.
As the Doctor turned back towards the fridge, he spied Rose leaning in the doorway, hands in the front pocket of her shirt. Every one of his senses kicked into overdrive.
He saw the strands of hair that always managed to escape her clip, curving around her eye and nearly touching her nose. Rose would brush it away when she noticed it, he knew. Her hoodie was not one he was familiar with. Either she'd bought it tonight while she was out on her date with Mickey, or she'd been back to her mum's. The former, most likely—it looked new. The evening had been unseasonably chilly, and the jacket she'd worn earlier was still draped over the jump seat in the control room. This new one looked like a stretchy cotton blend. The Doctor imagined the texture of the pliant fabric, and his fingers twitched involuntarily inside the oven mitt.
Her jeans were the same as when she left—definitely a new hoodie, then, rather than a change of clothes—and he saw that she was barefoot on the cool tile. Rose was back for the night, then. The threads on the hem of her jeans, frayed from their usual running, brushed the tops of her feet, and the Doctor wondered how long she would wait before trimming them.
His time and spatial senses, as usual, went haywire whenever Rose was near. They could only manage an insistent 'gone too long' and 'not close enough'.
His next breath registered the polish on her nails, the sharp chemical smell of treated fabric (has to be new, he thought,if she hasn't washed it yet.), the scent of her shampoo, and the acridity of burning muffins.
That smell, combined with Rose's "Those s'pposed to be smoking like that?" tore him from his abstraction, and he seized the second oven mitt from the top of the fridge, tearing open the oven door as fast as possible and activating the ventilation fans. He sighed. So much for this batch, then. The Doctor huffed as he opened the hidden drawer that contained his kitchen bin and poured a dozen blackened cranberry muffins into it.
"Shouldn't you let them cool down first?" Rose asked.
The Doctor dismissed her worries with a wave of a mitt. "Nah, it's fireproof. 3000-Kelvin melting point. Picked it up at a bazaar on Io, best twenty Solar credits I've ever spent." He opened the fridge looking through its depths for pre-cut bacon, momentarily blocking Rose from view. When he straightened up and went back to the stove, he noticed she hadn't moved.
Rose saw through his claim. "Best use of your psychic paper as a traveler's check, you mean."
"Maybe," the Doctor confessed. "You're home early. What's the matter, big row with Ricky?"
Rose exhaled and rested her head on the doorframe, breaking eye contact. When she didn't correct him, the Doctor's face fell. He'd been trying to cheer her up, goading her into her always-insistent response. Her disbelief that he couldn't remember Mickey's name was as feigned as his inability to recall it, but it was a game they both not-so-secretly enjoyed. Usually.
He saw Rose's hands wring together inside the front pocket of her shirt and heard, rather than saw, the rapid blinking he associated with a human fighting tears. He hoped she would tell him what happened. Otherwise, he would have to string Mickey upside down until he squawked, and he couldn't leave the eggs boiling for that long.
The Doctor busied himself with the bacon, but kept his attention focused on Rose. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Rose replied offhandedly, turning to prop her back against the doorframe.
"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked again, reducing heat on the burner and adding four rashers that sizzled and popped, filling the room with the smell of smoked maple.
"Nothing," Rose insisted, glaring at him.
"All right, then," he conceded. The Doctor continued cooking, flipping the bacon to cook it evenly. As he forked the finished pieces onto a napkin-lined plate to soak up the remaining grease, he felt Rose step up behind him. She grasped the sides of his jacket in her small hands, and leaned herself against his back. "Bit hard to cook like that, Rose," the Doctor informed her. Rose sniffled. He froze.
He'd defeated ice giants, pulled a system of 8 planets back into habitable orbits with a kettle and a piece of string, rehabilitated mercenaries so resolutely that they'd founded a monastery…
But crying humans were notoriously difficult to deal with and would require all of his concentration. He turned off the burner and set his skillet aside.
"He's just so stupid," Rose groaned against his back.
The Doctor nodded, agreeing. "Apes are like that."
"Thanks," Rose said flatly.
"Not you," he turned to look over his shoulder at her, spying only the top of her head where her roots showed, stark against the blonde. "I meant humans."
She looked up sharply and pursed her lips. The Doctor judged this as an attempt to look angry. He made an effort not to smile.
Rose pushed off of his back, still glowering, and gave a little jump to seat herself on the counter to the left of the stove. She shifted one knee to the side to open the drawer in front of her, which she then leaned over and shuffled through. After a bit of hunting, she extracted a pair of scissors.
"Mickey thinks I like you better than him," Rose told the Doctor, trying to open the scissors and failing. She slid open bin drawer, chucked the useless scissors, then dug around for another pair.
"That's likely. He's not that fond of me, I've noticed."
"I mean, he thinks I like you better than I like him."
"Ah. Quite right, too."
Rose narrowed her eyes and pointed her second pair of scissors threateningly in his direction. "None from you, if you don't mind. That's all I've heard all night long." Rose pulled one bare foot up to the counter and started trimming the loose strings on her jean cuffs, right next to the bacon. The Doctor cringed and gingerly shifted the plate over out of harm's way. He wanted to comfort her, but didn't want to overstep his bounds. He weighed several options before giving it up as a bad job and going back to his cooking.
He opened the fridge to get preserves for the toast and was abruptly informed that he was handling the situation badly.
Pears.
Nothing but pears.