A/N: Hi guys! Some Tentoo/Rose adorableness for Thanksgiving! Now, I'd just like to put this out there, I know most people in England don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so just pretend. :) I would've put them in America for some reason but that'd be too complicated. Happy Thanksgiving!
"Psst... Hey Doctor, wake up!" Rose shook his shoulders a little, trying to gently wake him up.
The Doctor was relaxing on their bed, taking his afternoon nap as he did ritually. Although Time-Lords didn't need to sleep, now that he was half human he needed more sleep than a regular human. He called them power rests instead of naps, but it didn't fool Rose. He was like a teenage boy. "What time is it?..." he groaned, rolling away from her and burying his face into the red pillow. An alarm clock was on the nightstand next to him, and a calendar reading "November 21st" also sat there.
The Doctor and Rose's flat was fairly large for two people, with a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, huge walk-in closet, and living room with a TV and couch. Their kitchen had one large table at which they ate all their meals, and two stoves although they only ever used one. Their bedroom consisted of a big red bed that Rose had picked out and a huge window overlooking London. They also had a table in front of the bed and two nightstands since the Doctor liked to litter surfaces with anything and everything.
"It's four o' clock... Time to get up," she threw a pillow at him, only causing him to groan louder. Rose rolled her eyes and grabbed each of his ankles in one hand, yanking him off the bed. "I said, time to get up!"
"Ow! Fine, I'll get up," The Doctor sat up in his usual pinstripes and she rolled her eyes. Did he ever change outfits? "How are you?" he asked casually, standing up and stretching.
Rose grinned a little and kissed him on the cheek, "Better now that you're not snoring on the bed at four in the afternoon."
He raised an eyebrow and did a long, fake laugh. "Time-Lords don't snore."
"Maybe Time-Lords don't, but half Time-Lords sure do." She shrugged and began making the bed.
As Rose fixed the pillows she felt his arms around her waist, holding her in place. She tried to wriggle away, but he increased his grip. "Nope, you're not getting away." The Doctor kissed her head and swung her back and forth.
"Let me go!" she demanded, kicking his leg lightly.
Instead of obeying, he suddenly tickled her ribcage, making her squirm even more in his grip. "I love you," He said happily as he kissed her and tickled her.
Rose could barely breathe in between her laughing, much less talk. "Stop it! Doctor!"
He turned her around and kissed her on the lips, only to be interrupted by a loud obnoxious phone ringing. "Darn. Your mother has the best timing, doesn't she?"
"Who's to say it's my Mum?" Rose asked, walking towards the phone.
"Well," he scratched the back of his neck and sat back down on the half-made bed. "It's not like anyone else really has our number."
Rose picked up the phone and started speaking, the Doctor listened intently but could only hear half of the conversation. "Hi Mum! Yes, I'm fine, he's fine, no, he hasn't broken anything today. That I know of. Mhmm. Oh, I bet we could do that! That'd be fun! Yeah, let me ask him." She pulled the phone away from her face for a moment, without saying anything, before bringing it back. "He said yes. Yup, see you in a week!"
As soon as she hung up, the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "What did I just 'agree' to?"
"We're hosting Thanksgiving. It'll be you, me, my Mum, Pete, Tony, and some of his good friends from work who I know. Ten people total. By the way, you haven't broken anything today have you?" She walked over to their kitchen and began making tea.
"Well..." he began but trailed off immediately, making the rest of the bed.
"Well what?"
"Er, I haven't broken anything."
Rose sighed and walked back into the bedroom. "Doctor, why is our kettle in two pieces?"
"It was a necessary experiment!" The Doctor insisted, using his best big brown puppy-dog eyes.
She rolled her eyes and walked back over to the phone, dialing Jackie's number. "Jackie, he broke the kettle. Yes, he's complaining that I'm calling you. Sorry, I won't let him touch it again. Yup, love you, bye."
"Why did you tell her?!" His eyelashes batted and he extended his lower lip a bit. Rose walked over to him and patted him on the head.
"So she can buy us a new one, I want tea. Now what kind of experiment involved cutting our kettle in half?"
"I wanted to see what force it would take to cut our kettle in half."
"Fair enough," she mumbled, sitting down at the large, rectangular glass table. "So, Thanksgiving is in a week."
"Yeah, about that," he sat across from her, folding his arms across his chest. "What does hosting a Thanksgiving dinner entail, exactly?"
Rose frowned. "You've never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner? Aren't you nine-hundred years old?"
"I've never had Thanksgiving dinner. They didn't do that kind of thing on Gallifrey, too boring," he smiled and leaned forward, poking her on the nose. "You can teach me."
"Sounds like fun," she decided.
However, things didn't turn out the way Rose had planned.
The calendar by their bed now read November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving.
Rose lay in bed half-asleep, with her nose extremely red and her throat sore. Her stomach was also extremely queasy, causing her to get up and go to the restroom several times that morning alone. The Doctor lay behind her, gently rubbing the knots out of her back. "Doctor... I don't think I can make the Thanksgiving preparations today and tomorrow..."
"Don't worry about it!" he insisted, turning her over to face him. "I'll do everything! Just make me a list, I've got it covered, Rose, you can count on me!"
He handed her a pen and paper, and she quickly wrote down a long list of things. The Doctor examined it, nodding when he saw something he understood.
Thanksgiving Preparation:
Today:
1) Clean house
2) Scrub down kitchen and clean out fridge
3) Shop for ingredients including pumpkin pie
4) Decorate and make house look nice
Tomorrow:
1) Prepare the table
2) Cook the dinner
3) Get drinks for everyone and buy dessert
"This is easy! You get some rest, I'll clean the house right now," he insisted, kissing her on the forehead and hopping out of the bed with fervor.
This would definitely be his chance to prove to Jackie that he could be a strong, independent human. Someone who could live without a TARDIS cleaning after him or Rose telling him what to do all the time. He would prepare this dinner flawlessly, and she and Rose would be amazed! It wasn't like it was hard, after all. Sure, he had never directly participated in a Thanksgiving dinner, but he had seen them several times. How hard could it possibly be?
He opened their cleaning supplies closet (That was what Rose called it), and took out the vacuum. It was purple and had a coiled up wire on the back, along with a few little switches. "Alright... So we plug this in..." After he entered the foyer he spotted an outlet, plugging in the vacuum and setting it on the carpet. He flipped the little on switch and it powered up, making a loud, annoying sound. The Doctor frowned, turning it off, and walked into the bedroom to grab something. Rose was asleep, so he quietly grabbed a pair of earplugs that he kept in the drawer and put them in his ears.
When he entered the foyer again and turned the vacuum back on, he was pleased to see he couldn't hear it anymore. He vacuumed the entire floor, humming Beyoncé as he worked, until the vacuum stopped picking up the dirt on the ground and made a weird rattling noise. The Doctor flipped the lever off and examined it, unsure of what was wrong. He tried it again and again four more times, but it was evident that it wouldn't work. Glancing around the room, he frowned when there was still a lot left to clean with it. The cleaning closet contained no more vacuums, so he went to his last resort. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver he had made a while ago and aimed it at the vacuum, trying to find the right setting to fix it with. Eventually, with a little plop, all the dirt that had been in the vacuum spilled out onto the ground in an ugly black pile.
"Doctor?" Rose's voice called from the bedroom as he stared at the mess he had made in shock. "Somethin' happen? I heard a weird noise."
"Nothing, I'm doing great! You should see the foyer!" he said with fake enthusiasm, desperately searching through the closet for something to clean the mess up with.
Her voice rang back through the door. "The vacuum may be a little full, if you fill it up just dump it out above a trashcan, alright?"
He seriously hoped she couldn't hear the noise of his palm hitting his forehead. "Yeah, got it. Good tip."
Eventually he had cleaned up the black mess of dirt on the carpet, and even managed to vacuum the rest of the floor. The time was already 1:00P.M. when he put the vacuum away and looked back at the list Rose had made. Scrub down the kitchen? That would be a piece of cake. He walked back to the supply closet and pulled out a duster, walking around the kitchen and dusting off every surface. When he reached the garbage disposal, he noticed it looked filthy so he took a towel and began to dig around in it.
He quickly forgot about leaving the dirty towel in the garbage disposal and focused his attention on remembering what Rose did so often, so he flipped the garbage disposal switch on the wall. Immediately, with a loud roaring noise, the towel was sucked in and shredded up. He panicked, flipping off the switch and trying to salvage any large pieces of the towel that he could. However, it was thick, and he wasn't going to ignore the fact that he had completely clogged the disposal. "Doctor?" Rose's voice called out again, making him want to hit his head on the counter. "Did something happen?"
He sighed, walking into the bedroom. "Rose, stop worrying! I told you already, I'm doing fantastic!"
She smiled at him as he kissed her on the cheek. "Sorry, I'll have more faith in you. It's just, I really want this to be a nice Thanksgiving for everyone. After all, it's your first one."
"I know. You just get better so you can eat with us tomorrow, alright?" He gave her a quick hug before returning to the kitchen and staring at the mess in the garbage disposal, unsure of what to do.
Eventually he walked into the living room and pulled out Rose's little address book with tons of phone numbers in it, flipping through until he came around the plumber. He took his own phone and dialed in the number, holding it to his ear and whispering into it. "Hi, this is John Tyler, I'm Rose's husband. Our garbage disposal is clogged."
"Hi, Mr. Tyler. I can come to your house on December 1st, would that work for you?" The man on the other end of the phone replied in a kind voice.
The Doctor scratched the back of his neck and looked in the direction of their bedroom, making sure Rose wouldn't be able to hear him. "Er, not exactly. I kind of need you to come sometime today. I'll pay you fifty pounds."
"Is 2:30p.m. okay for you?" The man replied.
"Perfect. Thank you so much. And could you do me one last favor?" he asked, putting the address book back precisely where he had found it.
"What's that?"
The Doctor ducked into the corner of the room and whispered, "When you come to our house, don't knock on the door, just text this number. Okay?"
"May I ask why?"
"I don't want my wife to hear you. Just... It's a long story. Please?"
"Sure, I can do that," The plumber said eventually. "Goodbye, Mr. Tyler."
"See you," The Doctor replied.
"Doctor?" Rose's sick voice echoed around the hallway again. "Who were you talking to?"
"Nobody!"
By the time he had scrubbed down the rest of the kitchen, everywhere except the garbage disposal, it was 2:15. His phone buzzed in his pocket and the Doctor smiled when he realized the plumber had come early. He tip-toed over to their front door, opening it and putting a finger to the plumber's face. The man wore a blue plaid shirt and jeans, along with Sperrys and a black hat. The plumber was round in body-shape and had a long black beard with a point at the end of it. "You need to be quiet," The Doctor whispered, giving him a kind smile. "The garbage disposal is this way."
The plumber gave him a strange look but nodded, following the Doctor into the kitchen. He saw the garbage disposal and set about fixing it immediately, wanting to get out of the house as soon as possible. Halfway through the unclogging, Rose called again, "Doctor? Is someone there?"
The man turned around and stared at the Doctor, raising an eyebrow as if to say, "Why does she call you that?" But instead of saying anything he continued working while John replied to Rose.
"No, why would you think someone is here?" he yelled, urging the plumber to work faster.
"I heard the door open."
"Rose, what did we talk about earlier? You think I messed something up and called someone to help me prepare dinner or something? That'd be stupid," he winked at the plumber who stood up and left, having fixed the simple clogging.
"You're right. I trust you," She replied with a loud cough.
"Now rest!" Nodding his thanks to the plumber, he handed him the money and shut the door behind him. "That's an order!"
"Are you sure you'll be okay while I go buy ingredients at the store, Rose?" The Doctor asked her at 3:30p.m.
"Yes. Want me to make a grocery store list for you? I already bought the turkey since it needs to thaw for so long."
He nodded. "That'd be nice."
Rose took the same piece of paper she had used for the To-Do list and flipped it over, scribbling down a messy list of things she needed for Thanksgiving. "Good luck. You can get yourself a chocolate bar, too."
"I'm not five years old, Rose," he rolled his eyes but grinned at her words, practically hopping out of the door with excitement and to their car.
The day he had entered Pete's World as a half-human, he had realized that driving was difficult. Sure, flying an infinite ship that could travel throughout time and space was difficult as well, but at least he had had training in that. Unless having Rose screaming at him while he attempted to drive around in an empty parking lot counted as training. She had laughed at him because he could name every single gear and piece of the car, including what every single road sign meant. It was just the actual act of driving the car that confused him as he pushed everything too hard or too soft and absolutely refused to buckle his seatbelt.
In complete honesty, he was honored that Rose hadn't even questioned him driving to the grocery store this time. So he would have to make her proud. He started the car fine and even got onto the street okay, it was only when he actually reached the grocery store that he had a problem. The Doctor drove around the parking lot, trying to find an empty space. Sure, there were plenty, but he wanted an easy one so he wouldn't mess it up. Eventually he settled on a nice spot and drove into it, careful not to hit the car next to him. When he got within inches of hitting it on accident, the car honked at him, making him jump.
As soon as he got out of his car, he glanced at the driver who had honked. To his despair, it was Jackie Tyler. "Oh hi Jackie!" he said, plastering a fake smile onto his face.
"Doctor?!" Jackie said, mouth dropping open as she slammed her red car door shut. "You almost ran into me!"
"Sorry!" he quickly replied. "Not too good at driving yet."
She gave him a glare. "And you parked crooked. What the bloody hell are you doing here? I thought you never went anywhere without Rose."
He gave her a hurt look and frowned, "I can do things without her. I'm grocery shopping."
"Rose let you go grocery shopping on your own? With her car? Really?" Jackie raised an eyebrow.
"Of course she did. Unlike you, Rose has faith in me," The Doctor shut his own car door and locked it with the key.
Realization hit Rose's mum when she discovered the Doctor was seriously offended. "Oh, you plum, I'm just messing with you. Of course Rose can send you out on your own."
"Thank you. Now, er, do you know where the mashed potatoes are at this store? Normally when I go shopping with Rose I just flip through the magazine section and make fun of actors..." he explained, obviously embarrassed as he tugged at his ear.
Jackie smiled a little sympathetically and grabbed his arm, yanking him towards the door. "Let me see that list, I'll help you shop for this stuff."
It was 5:00P.M. when the Doctor returned home, completely exhausted and bruised along the arms from Jackie dragging him around the grocery store. Rose was laying in her bed still asleep and the house was as quiet as a mouse. He carefully set the groceries down on the counter, sorting them into different piles depending on where they needed to go. It took him a while, not to mention a bit of Googling, to place everything in it's correct spot in the kitchen.
Turnips belonged on the counter, according to some website he had found. Why would they even have turnips for Thanksgiving? Putting this thought to the side, he entered he and Rose's bedroom again and laid down next to her. He wrapped his arms around her, causing her to sigh in pleasure and roll around to face him, burying her face into his shoulder. The Doctor grinned a little at this contact and fell asleep quickly, utterly exhausted from his long day.
Since he had gone to sleep so early, he was up at 6:45a.m. in the morning. Rolling out of bed while careful not to wake Rose up, he quickly looked at the list she had prepared the day before and frowned. This would definitely be a lot harder. He figured he would run out to the pie store and grab pumpkin pie since Rose had insisted she only liked pies from the annoyingly far away pie store, but for now he had to set about thinking how he would prepare the dinner. Turkeys. People always ate a turkey on Thanksgiving, right?
He opened up his laptop that Rose had bought him and quickly typed in how to correctly cook a turkey. According to the first website he clicked on, he needed to cook it for five hours at 162 degrees Celcius. Since Rose's family was coming over at 6:00, he would need to start cooking the turkey around 12:45. But for now, he still needed to decorate the house since he didn't have time yesterday. The Doctor walked into the foyer and glanced around, twisting his mouth to the side when he saw how dull and plain the room was. He jumped with excitement when he came up with an idea and ran outside to the car. Hopping in, this time with a little bit better of an idea on how to drive, he rushed the car down the street to the nearest crafts store.
When he entered the store he wasn't surprised to see he was one of the only people there, considering it was so early in the morning. He went to the Photos section and picked out several photo frames he figured Rose would like, stuffing them all in his hands and moving to the checkout. Oh, Rassilon, how was he supposed to check out? The cashier closest to him was a teenager with severe acne on his face, and a clearly bored expression. The Doctor awkwardly approached him with his bag and set it down on the counter, giving him a friendly smile.
"How are you today?" The boy asked monotonously, bagging the frames and waiting for the money.
The half Time-Lord dug through his wallet desperately trying to come up with enough money, not wanting to risk trying to use a credit or debit card. He pulled out a wad of cash and handed them to the man, confused when he was offered change. "What's that for?" The Doctor asked.
"It's your change. Do you want it?" The cashier asked, rolling his eyes a little and putting the extra money on the counter.
The Doctor shrugged, "Sure."
As he exited the store, he bounded back into the car with excitement. He bought four frames, one with a green border and pink flowers and one that matched with the opposite colors. The other frames were plain black and white, but had a little spot for an engraving. After he left the crafts store he drove to the camera store to get it engraved, following the instructions on the back of the frame. When he entered the little shop there was only one man at the desk, but he looked friendly enough. The Doctor asked the man about the engraving and he was extremely helpful, informing him that he could have up to ten words and ninety characters.
The Doctor thought for a moment before telling him what to write, smiling like an idiot when it was completed. He thanked the man and drove back home, surprised to see that Rose was awake. "I'm already feeling better," she mumbled when he walked into the room.
"Good! But I don't want you worrying about absolutely anything until the dinner, you still need to rest," he stated, fluffing her pillow and pushing on her chest, laying her back down. "I've got everything covered."
"Are you sure? I think I feel well enough to help out..." At the perfect timing she coughed violently away from him into her right elbow. "Okay, well, Doctor's orders I guess."
He smiled a little at that, kissing her again. "Doctor's orders is right. Now get some sleep."
The Doctor walked back out of her room and into the living room, deciding which pictures to print out and put in the frames. He soon selected a few that would fit perfectly, printing them out easily and placing them into the frames with caution. Walking back into the foyer with the various frames in hand, he debated how he was going to hang them up on the wall or place them on a surface. All of the frames had hooks for hanging but also had little legs for standing them up vertically or horizontally. Eventually, he decided on placing the white and black ones on a tiny table under a mirror and hanging the other two up on the wall in the kitchen.
He retrieved a hammer from the tool kit in the closet and got a few nails from there as well. Sneaking one look back at Rose's room, he carefully touched the hammer to the nail to get a feel for it. He tried to hit the hammer as quietly as possible, but it was more difficult than he had thought it would be. As soon as he gained confidence and began hammering harder and faster, he accidentally hit his finger. The damage wasn't too bad, but the pain was immense. He gripped his finger with the other hand and fell onto his knees, trying not to yell or make any noise except groan quietly.
"Hey Doctor, you okay?" Rose asked him.
He grimaced, trying to respond. "Ye- Yeah. I'm fine."
With a lot of persistence, he continued hammering in the nails until they were completely dug into the walls. Happy with his work, he hung the pictures up on the walls and stepped back to admire them. Rose would absolutely love them, that he was sure of. When this was done it was 9:15. He decided he would take another nap since he was still tired, so he crawled back next to Rose and snuggled up against her.
He woke up when Rose got up to go to the restroom. She had gently picked his arms up from her stomach and placed them onto the bed, stroking his hair a little before leaving. The Doctor smiled at the touch and yawned, checking the time. It was 12:30 now, so he knew he would have to start cooking the turkey soon. Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, he walked into the kitchen and decided to prep the table early. This part was easy, he knew where every knife and fork and spoon was supposed to go and how to lay the cloth around the table. He placed a tiny pack of crayons for Tony so he could draw on the cloth and poured water for everyone, planning to add ice later.
Soon enough he was at work with the turkey, attempting to place it in the cooker that Rose had left for him. He wasn't sure how to pick it up, so he tried several different methods. At first he just used his hands, but the bird was too slippery and disgusting for him to get it all the way in the cooker. Then he put layers of paper towels around his hands, but that didn't work either since the towels just slipped off. After trying gloves, forks, knifes, and more, he decided on a very large fork that he had found and successfully plopped it into the cooker, setting the time and temperature.
After this was done he checked the times for some of the other foods he would need to cook, including the mashed potatoes and rolls. He was still unsure of what to do with the turnips he had bought, seeing as they weren't used in any of the recipes. He went to ask Rose this, and she explained that turnips were Pete's favorite food and he liked to scatter them around his meal sometimes. Shrugging, the Doctor went along with this and went back to work at cooking.
The time was now 3:00p.m., and he was already about to pass out. He was hopping about the kitchen, from stove to stove and then to the fridge and back again, trying to take care of twenty foods at once. He knew he was cooking early, but his plan was to finish this and then take care of Rose before the dinner, since she still wasn't feeling at her best. There was constantly something to be done in the kitchen. The mashed potatoes weren't mashed enough, the gravy wasn't hot enough, or the rolls weren't big enough yet. But eventually he stood in the kitchen surrounded by prepared food, and he had done it all in only an hour and a half.
He opened the door to the bedroom with the intent to take care of Rose but frowned when she looked perfectly healthy. "Doctor!" She grinned, running forward to hug him. "Look, I'm feeling so much better! You don't have to worry about cooking the food anymore, I've got it covered."
"You're all better?" The Doctor murmured in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"
Rose grinned, "Yeah. Isn't that a good thing?"
"Of course!" he said much too quickly. "That's a great thing..." His voice trailed off as he sighed, sitting down on the bed.
"What's wrong?" she asked with concern, stroking his hair and sitting next to him.
The Doctor laughed a little, "Nothing. I just cooked a lot of food."
"Why did you cook so early? I could've done it..."
"I was planning to take care of you," he said in all honesty.
"Awwh..." Rose frowned, kissing him chastely on the lips.
RING!
"The doorbell..." The Doctor groaned, standing up. "Your mother's timing strikes again... Why's she so early?"
Jackie entered the room, dangling a key in her hand. "She wants to make sure you didn't screw up the dinner."
"Oh, hello Jackie," he said, extending a hand.
"Don't give me that gentlemen hand-shake crap. Come here, you," Jackie pulled him in for a tight bear hug, making him pale.
When the clock finally reached 5:56p.m. guests began arriving. It began with Pete and Tony showing up, followed soon by a bunch of men and women the Doctor had never met. Rose sensed his unease and introduced him to everyone, and he did his best to be polite and charismatic. They set down all the food on the table and Jackie gave thanks for the food. When she was done, they all began digging into the food and everyone gave the Doctor compliments.
"This is the best turkey I've ever had!" Jackie exclaimed, grabbing another cut of it. "How did you know to cook this?"
He shrugged, taking a big spoonful of mashed potatoes. "They did teach us to cook on Gallifrey. Maybe not turkeys, but Google helped a lot." The Doctor noticed Pete's friends confused looks and immediately wanted to hit himself for saying Gallifrey. "Er.. Gallifrey is a small town, where I'm from."
They nodded, seeming to accept this, and Rose turned around for a moment, staring at the wall with confusion. "Doctor?"
"Yeah?" he tried not to grin when he saw she was noticing the picture frames.
"When did those get there?" A smile grew on her face and she turned back towards him.
The entire table turned to admire the photos. "Bought them today. You did tell me to decorate, so..."
He scratched the back of his neck, a little embarrassed, but she replied with, "They're absolutely perfect! Thank you so much, I love them. I need to get sick more often."
His eyes widened at that, "Oh, please don't."
"Relax, I'm just kidding," Rose assured him, sipping her water.
The rest of the dinner went smoothly, they got out the pumpkin pie after everyone was done and it was delicious. Tony scribbled all over the disposable tablecloth with the crayons, drawing a picture of everyone at the table. When the Doctor saw the picture he had drew of him, he had said, "Is my hair really that tall?"
Rose hugged everyone as they left and the Doctor shook their hands, and soon enough everyone was gone, leaving them standing in their foyer. "You really bought those pictures?" she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"Mhmm," he hummed, nodding towards the other two frames that were on the table. "I got those two too, see the engraving?"
"I haven't," Rose let him go and walked over, examining the frame. She placed both her hands on her heart and looked back at him. "Awwh! That's so sweet of you!"
The black frame read, "I love you forever" and had a little heart next to it. The white one next to it read, "I love you with my entire heart." The Doctor blushed a little, "I thought it fit well. What with me having only one heart now and all. I'm glad you like them, Rose."
"So," she began toying with the top button of his shirt and teasing him, "You're just a big softie now aren't you?"
His hands flew up in defense, "Oi! I am not a big softie! I just thought you'd like it was all..." He walked towards her and put an arm around her shoulder.
"I don't like it, I love it."
"I love you so much," he whispered, putting his lips on her neck and slowly kissing upwards.
RING!
"Can we get rid of that stupid phone?!" The Doctor growled, following Rose to the bedroom as she went to answer the phone. He sat down on the bed and folded his arms across his chest.
"Hello?" She said, raising her eyebrow at what the person on the other end of the phone said. "I did? Wait... You mean my husband?"
His eyes widened as he stood up, walking over to her and holding out his hand for the phone. "Who is it?" He mouthed to Rose.
She held up her finger, telling him to wait, and frowned. "Mhmm... Really now? Alright, you can talk to him."
"Hello?" The Doctor asked, putting the phone to his ear.
"Mr. Tyler?" The plumber said awkwardly. "Er, you forgot to sign for the service. Can I come over very quickly to get your signature? I'm in the area."
He almost dropped the phone as he looked at Rose and his face flushed with embarrassment. "Um... Sure, of course."
"Thank you, see you in a bit."
"Doctor?" Rose folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. "Anything to say to me?"
"Erm... I love you?" The Doctor attempted kissing her on the forehead, but she placed her hand on his chest, shoving him back.
She rolled her eyes. "Why did the plumber just call me to tell me we forgot to sign for him unclogging our garbage disposal?"
He tugged at his ear and sighed, "We may be missing a towel. And the vacuum may be missing some parts. And our car may have a few scratches. Not to mention the neighbor's cat may be missing. But other than that, I think I did a pretty good job!"
Instead of yelling at him, Rose sighed and picked up the phone, beginning to dial her Mum.
"Wait!" The Doctor insisted, taking the phone away from her. "Don't tell Jackie! I want her to see that I can do things on my own, without help!"
"You really think she thinks that about you?" Rose stared at him and her expression turned to sympathy. "She doesn't think that! My mum knows how hard the transition must have been for you. From going full Time-Lord to half Time-Lord, nobody could expect you to understand how to be human right away. Jackie loves you, she just doesn't show it like.. Well, like most people."
He twisted his mouth to the side, obviously not believing her. "Really?"
"Here, I won't call her. In fact, I think you can sign for the plumbing service, buy a new vacuum, and take the car to a repair shop if it's badly damaged. And, well, the neighbor's cat was annoying anyways."
A wide smile grew on his face as he hugged her tightly, "You're amazing! Amazing, you know that right?"
"I know," she mumbled into his shoulder, hugging him back, "You're amazing too."
"I'll go to the store right now!" He jumped out of the door, calling over his shoulder, "What color vacuum do you want? I'm thinking blue!" Rose laughed as he shut the door with a slam, and giggled even harder when she heard him enter the house again. "Oh, I forgot about the plumber. I guess I'll wait here for a bit."
"Yep," she said, relaxing on the bed. "You really haven't changed."
He fingered the bottom of her shirt lazily and gestured towards the phone on nightstand, "Maybe you should turn that off."
"Doctor, the plumber is coming in like five minutes," Rose pointed out, turning the phone off anyways.
"Plenty of time."
