This ones for BarbMacK on this site and for my doctorwho100 prompt how? with my claim of Jackie Tyler. Not finished, so will come in segments. Because I have had this story in my head for a very long time. Ninth Doctor fic.
Title: Getting to Know You
Rating: M (for later)
Prompt: #081 – How?
Claim: Jackie Tyler
Summary: For reasons unknown to Jackie and the Doctor, the two have switched bodies. Rose is just as clueless. Jackie and the Doctor learn a lot about the other as they team together to try and right what has happened.
Getting to Know You
It had been a long day, made harder still by the pounding headache Rose now had by the current battle that had started over one stupid little thing. Her of course, it was always about her. Who should have her, who shouldn't, whether she should be able to have rights or not, so on so forth. Either way you looked at it, the Doctor and her mother never stopped arguing over the smallest thing and it was driving her crazy.
The Doctor had his arms clenched tightly in front of him, probably creasing the leather of his jacket more than it already was, and it hid the nice dark green jumper he had chosen to wear under it. Her mother on the other hand had her hands on her hips, her top heaving along with each breath as she yelled at him for not bringing her home for her birthday which happened to have been the day before.
It had been a slight miscalculation on the Doctor's part. He had been taking her home for her 20th, but at least he only missed the day by one. It was just a shame that her mum had heard the TARDIS and ran out in a fury before he could correct it.
If she could have gotten a word in edgewise, as the Doctor began his defence, she would have pointed out two things. 1) That they should stop yelling and try to talk it out in much quieter tones, and 2) that maybe it would be best not to have stupid fights like this out on the streets where a crowd could be drawn.
She discretely walked the few steps back to the TARDIS and closed the door, glad that the old girl had a habit of locking herself when her door was closed. The last thing they needed was one of the gawking onlookers to see inside and catch sight of something they really shouldn't.
She wondered when she began calling the TARDIS 'old girl'. The Doctor must be rubbing off on her a bit.
"Mum, Doctor, please! There are people watching!" she said loudly enough to get their attention, then watched as they looked about themselves and felt guilty over it.
"It was just a simple mistake Jackie, I didn't mean anything by it," the Doctor said to get his last say in, before turning back to the TARDIS, took a look at the people standing around watching, and decided to storm off in the direction of the flat instead.
"Like hell you didn't!" Jackie yelled back loudly, before stalking off after him, muttering under her breath the entire way. Rose slowly lingered behind them, rubbing her head, and caught the looks of interest people were now throwing her way.
"Shows over folks," she stated, watching as the crowd dispersed and went their separate ways back into their own flats. "Hopefully," she whispered quietly to herself as she made her way to the stairwell that would lead to the flat.
She dreaded what she would find when she got back inside, so was nicely surprised to not find them at each other's throats. The Doctor was sitting in the armchair he had been in the day that he had brought her home a year late, legs spread wide, arms still crossed in front of his chest, and a sour expression on his face as he watched the current bad goings on in the news. He didn't look like he was going to budge an inch for the rest of the day.
Her mum was in the kitchen, pretending that she had to watch the kettle to make it boil by the looks of it. A look just as sour was on her face.
"You two done yet? 'Cause I don't think it could get any more embarrassing being yelled about in the middle of the streets thanks very much."
"Oi, don't look at me like that, she's the one that started it. So I got a date wrong, I could have brought you back a week late, not a day, but no, that's a major problem that needs to start World War IV."
"If you could drive that bloody machine of yours properly, you wouldn't get the dates wrong. You're supposed to be a genius, Doctor, so go figure it out."
He sat up in the chair to turn around and glare at the older woman. "I've been piloting her for 900 years! I think I know what I'm doing. She's old, and has faults."
"Well then fix it."
"I'm trying! I don't exactly have all the parts I need. Some don't even exist anymore. I'm doing the best I can."
The one good thing that the comment her mother made was that the argument finished, because the Doctor refused to say another word. Rose could kind of understand why. The TARDIS meant everything to the Doctor and she was slowly falling apart.
Going into the kitchen, she closed the door and the partition and glared at her mum. "That was a low blow. The TARDIS is all he has left. He'd be completely lost without her."
Jackie kept the haughty look on her face, though it had slipped a tiny bit of a fraction closer to just being a frown. "Well, maybe if he didn't keep on screwing up, I'd talk better to him."
Rose shook her head. "He isn't screwing up on purpose mum. Believe me, you'd know it if he did. Have you looked at the console of the TARDIS mum? It's made of junk he has to put together just to keep her from completely falling apart. Half the original controls have either eroded over time, or been broken and replaced. I never saw the TARDIS and what she looked like when she was not as old, but apparently she used to look a lot different. It isn't his fault, it isn't the TARDISes fault. It's just...a miscalculation that you are blowing way out of proportion."
Now her mum was angry at her too, nostril's flaring and eyes lowering slightly. "I'm not the one who took someone without bothering telling anyone anything."
Rose rolled her eyes, because this was a very old argument now. And her mum would never be happy with any answer she was given by anyone. "I was gone 3 days of my time. It was supposed to be 12 hours I had been gone, not 12 months. There was a malfunction."
"Then maybe I will refuse to let you go in that bloody machine for one more trip! It's clearly not safe."
A bang was heard from the other room, the sound of a slamming door, and Rose rushed to the kitchen window, desperately afraid that the Doctor was going to get into the TARDIS and disappear on her, and if he did, she knew she would never see him again.
It was with great relief that the Doctor went passed the TARDIS and out into the streets beyond her vision and she sagged against the wall. "I can't leave him mum. I wish you could understand that."
The kettle boiled then, scaring her slightly, but making her mum go and do something productive. Like pouring out drinks. Two teas and a coffee for the Doctor. She had to make sure that the coffee was actually made just so that when the Doctor got back from his walk, he'd have something to have in his hands.
He had a terrible habit of fiddling around with things if he wasn't busy.
By the time her tea was cool enough to start drinking, the Doctor had arrived back at the house, knocking on the door instead of barging in, and holding in his hands a peace offering. He'd gone out and brought chips for lunch. It was that more than anything which clued her off to just how upset the Doctor really was. He only ate chips when he was in a depressed kind of mood.
It made her mum that little bit happy with him though, and they ate their chips with salt and vinegar and slices of bread and butter. For a birthday lunch it wasn't some elaborate thing, but Rose didn't mind. She was with her mum, she was a year older and no longer a teenager, and the Doctor was there to share it with her.
And to her, it really didn't matter that this was a day late.
The small meal was followed by her presents. One from Mickey, who was off with some of his friends for the day, sure she wasn't coming back (that one had hurt) and a few from her mum. For a special treat, she had brought her mum a present too. It wasn't much, just a small dish from the last place they visited. It was a very thin ceramic one, with roses all around it, which was odd, considering the planet it was from had never seen a true rose in its life, and only went by a picture in a book.
It was very pretty though, and her mother seemed to love it.
Her own clothes consisted of a new travel bag, with more compartments to carry small trinkets back in, some clothes for both hot and cold weather, and a necklace with a running horse on it. Mickey had gotten her a scarf for cold weather, a box of roses (as in the actual flowers and not the chocolates) and buried in with them a card, wishing her a happy 20th.
The Doctor looked extremely uncomfortable sitting in the mix of wrapping paper. Shifting slightly, he got up to move back to the chair he had been sitting in earlier, but was stopped and dragged back to the ground by Jackie Tyler, the woman who haunted his every move whenever he took Rose home.
"Oh no, you can be helpful since you got the bloody date wrong. You can clean up."
He wanted to complain, she could see it clearly on his face, and so could her mum. But he got up and reluctantly did it anyway. He was probably afraid of the next thing she was going to say to him which would cut him just as much as a knife could.
Words seemed to be the biggest weapon anyone could have against the Doctor. Put him in a room with a lot of people with guns, or aliens with sharp claws out to gut him and he'll smile and talk them out of killing him, but give him a verbal fight, and he tightens himself up for a hard fight. It isn't that he didn't have the words, because he had a billion of them, no, it was that he really hated that kind of confrontation, especially if words were geared towards hurting him.
And though he tried to hide it as much as he could, he was easily hurt by words.
"Well, at least he's doing what he's told today," her mum said more to say something and get her out of her thoughts. Rose smiled and nodded.
"He doesn't like the whole domestic scene very much, you know that, but he's trying to do something to get you off of his back."
Staring at her, Jackie frowned. "Well, at least I know he can be helpful if there's an alien threat, and is it my imagination, or is there a lot more of them than there was before he came marching in here that first time?"
Rose laughed and shrugged. "Honestly, I think it is the same as always, we just did the human thing of blocking it out and not wanting to believe it. Now that my eyes are open I wonder how I could possibly have missed it."
Her mum actually nodded. "It's funny. I think that's true. I mean aliens. It's so unbelievable, but I know it's true. I mean there's currently an alien in my kitchen! Whoever would have thought? Bloody bastard could have told me he was taking you away though."
Rolling her eyes again, Rose leaned forward, patted her mum's leg softly and smiled. "Mum, you really need to let that go, or else you'll never see how good he can be, or how much he loves Earth and humans. He'd never hurt me on purpose mum, and if you'd give him half a chance, you'd realise he isn't a threat."
Jackie shifted slight and sighed. "I can't help it. The word alien is naturally followed by threat."
"Mum, I've met a lot of aliens, both good ones and bad ones. Not all of them are threats. You ever thought that to him we are aliens? Well, to him every other thing is an alien but that isn't the point..."
Jackie shrugged slightly, looked out towards the kitchen and frowned. "Well if you're done you can come back out. Hiding isn't very becoming Doctor."
Rose turned her head and spotted the Doctor peeking between the door to the kitchen and the lounge room. She smiled at him. "Mum promises to behave herself if you do," she said, though no such promise was made.
The Doctor smiled back at her, and walked back to his chair and sat down, once again going straight for the news, which by the time he got there was well and truly over. It was the only thing he watched on telly that she knew of. The television was turned back off and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.
"Right, that's it, I don't care whether you don't like domestics or not, you're staying for a while. I'll make dinner. How about steak? Do you eat meat?"
"Yes Jackie, I eat meat."
"Good, good..."
While her mum wondered off into the kitchen and got out the steaks to defrost, the Doctor lowered himself back to the floor. "Dinner?"
"I swear it wasn't my idea. She wanted to do the same thing before we took off after that time when she thought you had kidnapped me for a year. She's trying at least. Just, let her talk, you talk back. You'll get through it."
"Fine, but can I go until then? Some of the casings on the TARDIS's wires are fraying. Better fix it before someone gets a nasty shock...not that she'll not shock me on purpose for letting her get into that state in the first place. It's a conspiracy; every female in my life apart from you seems to be against me."
"Oh Doctor, that's unfair. You know I'll be ready to do something sneaky as soon as I think of something," she replied poking her tongue out at him as she said it, and the corners of his eyes turned up as he laughed.
"Thanks for the warning, Miss Tyler."
"You need it, or you'll never see it coming."
"Cheeky!"
"Don't you know it," and again she poked her tongue out at him. And once again, she heard his laughter fill the room. Chips and a good laugh, that usually worked in cheering him up a bit, though she didn't doubt that her mum would get him back in a foul mood before too long.
She let him go back to the TARDIS, or else he would probably walk out by the time dinner was served, saving both her mum and him from what she hoped was to be another pointless argument. She peeked outside every now and again throughout the day, looking to see if he disappeared, but the TARDIS was there each time she looked. Once she even saw him outside, going over to a bin and putting what she could only assume as old wires that were replaced in there.
Well, at least he really was working on the TARDIS, that was good to know.
By the time she went down there to go get him, with the imminent dishing up of steak and vegetables, she found him sifting through the insides of his ship, looking carefully at wires. He jumped half a mile when she said his name.
"Dinner's ready. Better go wash your hands and get up to the flat, or mum will throw a fit."
"It's her fists I'm worried about," he replied, rubbing slightly at his cheek, remembering a slap he had once received from the irate mother. It still made her giggle every time he remembered the slap.
They walked back to the flat with him sulking and her dragging him half the way by his arm. Well, since he was technically stronger than her, she guessed he let himself be dragged. It was one of those things she could later tease him for.
By the time they got back, her mum had just finished placing the three plates on the table, a tureen of gravy sat in the middle of the table, and the knives and forks were gleaming more than usual. It took Rose a few seconds to realise that her mum was using the good cutlery set, only used for special occasions.
"Sit down, eat, the both of you."
They sat, and they ate. While Mickey didn't like Jackie's cooking and was always complaining on it, the Doctor didn't seem to mind. Yet again, both of them had had worse meals made of unknown substances on far away planets, so who cared if the cooking her mum made wasn't exactly the best. It was steak, and steak was expensive.
She snorted in her potatoes as a thought came to her about bad food. "Remember those eggs we had on Balgonia?"
The clatter of cutlery on the doctor's side stopped and the knife and fork lowered to the table, he poked at the offending piece of steak, the little that was left, like it was about to blow up in his face. "Why? Your cooking's not that bad, Jackie...I'm sure of that..."
"It's not bad, Doctor. Though I'm sure Mickey'd find something to complain about. No I was just thinking on food. You were up and down being sick all night."
"Oi! I swear...they poisoned me. And you, Miss Tyler were no help at all."
"I gave you a bucket. All you needed. Oh, and made you a few little snacks."
Her mum poked in then, her voice low and angry. "You think I'm poisoning you? Or I gave you bad food on purpose?"
"No, I just said that I didn't think your cooking was bad."
Jackie Tyler had never had her meals written off as anything bad before and blinked. "Now you're just being polite."
"Jackie, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't eat any more. One of the things with space-time travel you have to get used to, trying out new foods and drinks, never trying the stuff you don't like again, unless your stuck with it of course. I am going to eat more steak Jackie. Maybe not eggs ever again, but steak is good."
"Doctor, honestly, people are accidentally poisoned by food all the time. You'll eat eggs again, just not eggs made by weird six legged orange people," Rose cut in, trying to alleviate the oncoming fight.
Her mum didn't like that very much. "What the hell are you doing with my daughter?"
"I'm showing her what no one else can."
Jackie stood up and leaned over the Doctor, and he looked like he was about to slide to the floor form the uncomfortable way he was trying to disappear into the seat he was still sitting on. "If you are sleeping with her I will..."
"I'm not sleeping with her!" he cried out at the same time Rose said very loudly "Mum, we're not sleeping together!"
Her mum raised her hand to give the Doctor a slap that was bound to be much more painful than the first one, but froze in mid swing. Something really odd happened instead. There was a bright light that seemed to fill the room, coming from each of them.
When the light dimmed, then disappeared entirely, she blinked her eyes and looked towards her mum and the Doctor. They were staring at each other oddly, her mum lowering her hand to limply fall at her side, while the Doctor was doing a good impression of a fish, his mouth opening and closing as if trying to say something.
"What the hell was that?!" the Doctor cried out loud, getting up in a hurry and tripping over his own feet.
"I don't know. Calm down and let me try and think..."
"Calm down?! How am I supposed to do that?"
The Doctor got back to his feet, and very slowly walked around to the kitchen, turning on the tap and started throwing water on his face, like as if something utterly unbelievable had just happened. Her mum just sank into a chair and stared at the remnants of the dinner.
Jackie looked at her, eyes filled with something akin to horror and hugged her arms around her body in a very uncomfortable gesture. "Rose? What happened?"
Pulling her mind out of the complete and utter weirdness that was happening to both her mum and the Doctor, she shrugged. "There was a bright light. And it was coming from you and the Doctor and then it went away and the two of you have been acting oddly ever since...why? What's wrong?"
"Rose...I am the Doctor."
The first response she had was to laugh, until the Doctor walked back in. "Sweetheart, what happened?" he asked her.
And then she knew it was real, and all the hilarity of it being a joke fled.
Somehow her mum and the Doctor had switched places.