Rose grabbed her keys off the counter top. "I'll be back in an hour, I've just got to drive out to the shop to check on things. I don't trust the new assistant. She's sweet, I guess, but she's just a little too spacey to be left on her own for too long."
The Doctor smiled. Rose, his Rose, was the proud new owner of her own little shop, selling little sweet things and a knickknack or two. And although she shouldn't be worried, and he should tell her so, he knew it would do no good.
The shop was like her baby, a little thing she nurtured and cared for and hoped would learn to walk and run before it fell.
So, he settled for teasing instead.
"Jackie will certainly maim you if she finds out you went," he said. "That's her friend's sister's cousin's daughter twice removed or whatever. Don't be too short with her."
Rose smiled to herself before continuing across their little kitchen, pausing to place a soft kiss on the Doctor's cheek. "I'll take my chances."
Before she closed the door, she called out, "If you do the laundry while I'm gone, then I won't have to maim you!"
The Doctor ran a hand through his already tousled brown hair, making it stick up a little bit more than usual. Laundry? In that horrid shaking machine that made the whole apartment rumble?
"I've taken on Daleks and murderous aliens, I can surely manage a bit of laundry," he muttered to himself.
Smoothing his shirt and checking his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, he wandered through the little door off the kitchen and into the laundry room.
The baby-blue basket filled with clothes, mostly Rose's, sat next to the shiny blue washer and dryer set.
The Doctor laid a hand on the blue washer that Rose had lovingly stenciled 'POLICE CALL BOX' across the side to try and make him more comfortable with it.
It had been about a month since they installed the thing, and regardless of Rose's complaints, the Doctor had not even entered the room. It definitely beat dragging bags of laundry down to the dark and gray laundromat on the corner, but he had never entered that place unless he had to, and never without Rose there. The TARDIS-blue paint job on the machine was Rose's idea of a joke, but nevertheless it made him feel slightly better, as well as bring a smile to his face.
He'd never done much with the laundry except move it from the washer from the dryer and press 'on,' and usually there was a helpful stranger at the laundromat to help him, or Jackie was at the apartment and bustling around, proclaiming that he couldn't do anything right and did the majority of the chores herself.
Rose couldn't bring herself to take away her mother's keys, even if she did burst in at some inopportune times.
The TARDIS was one thing, but a laundry machine? It pained him to even think about it.
"Well," the Doctor said to himself. "Obviously the clothes have to go into the washer, right? And there has to be soap and other things... Like that bottle with the little fuzzy bear on it, I've seen Rose use that. And then you turn the little dial, and press the red button."
He grinned. "I can do this."
Picking up the basket, he carefully loaded the clothes into the top of the washer, avoiding the little spinny thing in the middle. That was easy enough.
Next, he supposed, the soap and things should go in. The writing on the side of the box was tiny, and the Doctor squinted through his small, rectangular glasses to try and read it.
After about a minute of so, he gave up with an exasperated sigh and just dumped what looked like a decent amount into the washer. "That doesn't look like nearly enough," he muttered, and put in a little more for good measure.
Should he use softener? Rose was usually very soft, so he supposed so.
The little bear seemed to taunt him from the front of the softener bottle. The Doctor never liked bears, especially small ones, after a run-in with a teddy-bear-factory-gone-bad around the time that teddy bears were first produced, named after Teddy Roosevelt.
Nice man, the Doctor thought to himself, though his enemies were more than he could comprehend at the time. Chuckling at the thought of murderous teddy bears, he picked up the softener bottle and poured some into the little compartment marked 'fabric softener.'
Now, this wasn't so hard.
Closing the lid of the washer, the Doctor replaced the bottle of softener and leaned forward to examine the little dials and knobs on the control panel. It was marked with things like "Medium Load" and "Delicate" and "Cotton."
Well, he thought, I suppose it would be a medium load? He turned the dial to that and pressed the little red button marked "START."
The machine rumbled to life, and the Doctor took a step back with a little jump. "Well, that's that, and I'll see you in about thirty minutes!" He gave the machine a good pat and went back into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
A serious of small bubbling noises called the Doctor back into the kitchen area. He had left not five minutes ago with a banana and a jar of peanut butter to pass the time, but he knew from experience that ignoring an odd noise usually did not end well.
The noise, the Doctor decided, seemed to be coming from the laundry room. Carefully setting down the banana and peanut butter on the counter, he leaned over to look at the door of the laundry room.
There was a small leakage of water underneath the door. Wasting no time, the Doctor sprang across the kitchen and opened the door, nearly slipping on the trail of water as he went.
"Oh, brilliant..." The Doctor groaned at what he saw.
The entire room was filled with little soapy bubbles, almost waist-high by now. Rose was going to absolutely murder him.
Kicking off his already damp and soapy slippers, the Doctor pushed up the sleeves on his navy button-up and started to wade through the bubbles. Sliding and most likely ruining his pants, he steadied himself on the violently shaking washer.
"Now, look here you," he said, giving the control panel a stern look. "You're going to stop this right now." The machine spit out more bubbles in response.
"Fine, then, if that's how you're going to be!" He pressed the off button.
Nothing happened. If anything, the machine rattled more than ever.
"I suppose I'll need sonic technology, then." Reaching into his pocket, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver.
In a grand motion he started to point it at the washer, but lost his balance and slipped on the wet floor, landing with a surprised "Ahhh!" and flinging his screwdriver into the sea of soapy bubbles.
The Doctor was literally surrounded by bubbles, and couldn't see a thing. Blindly groping around, he finally found the top of the washing machine and pulled himself up, only to lose his balance again and slide, but only to his knees this time.
The screwdriver was nowhere to be found.
Pulling himself up and staying up this time, the Doctor gave the washing machine a murderous look. Rose could be home any minute, and he needed to fix this before she got home. She had been so stressed lately with the shop that he wanted to do what he could to make things a little bit easier for her.
He took a few careful steps back and leaned against the wall opposite the churning machine, trying to think of a solution.
With no sonic screwdriver and the off button not working, he supposed he could turn off the power to the laundry room, but then that would just start it back up again once he turned it back on.
But, it was worth a shot.
The Doctor slipped and slid towards the door, bracing himself against the wall before he felt confident enough to break away.
Pushing himself off the door to the opposite wall, he almost made it to the door before he hit that little blue laundry basket, hidden by the bubbles, and crashed to the floor once again. He muttered a string of curse words in an alien language, trying to pick himself up again. In his haste, he didn't even hear the footsteps.
The door burst open, and the Doctor looked up, surprised.
Rose was staring, not at him, but past him, at the mess of bubbles and water filling the room.
"What on earth did you do?" she demanded, turning her gaze to him. He muttered something about sonic screwdrivers and cursed teddy bears before she rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like 'useless.'
The Doctor watched from the suds as she tried to stomp across the floor, but ended up slipping and sliding as much as he had a minute ago, before ending up on the floor just like he had.
And the Doctor couldn't help it; he started to laugh.
Taking another look around, Rose started to laugh too, before they both realized that their entire apartment would be filled with suds if they didn't do something about it.
Crawling through the bubbles, Rose finally reached the back of the washing machine and yanked out the plug. The rumbling machine stopped at once, leaving only the small sound of popping bubbles behind.
The Doctor sat up amidst the remaining bubbles and gave Rose a huge smile.
"Rose Tyler, you are absolutely brilliant!"
He got up as well as he could and slid his way over to her, helping her up before giving her a hug. She smiled against his chest, the sound of his single heartbeat ringing through her ears.
"I think we should use a different brand of softener," he said softly, turning the bottle around to face the wall.
Rose laughed as he picked her up and set her onto the washer. "Those teddy bears were years and years ago, Doctor, and in a completely different country!" He gave her a stern look. "That means absolutely nothing and you know that."
Laughing, she grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him in for a long kiss.