10:17am

It had been a couple of hours, and Rose was losing it. She had been staring at the clock for the past 20 minutes, willing time to go faster, silently bargaining and promising to give up chocolate and shopping and staying up all night on the internet if she could only skip to the end of this nightmare day. She kept getting the urge to check her phone, putting her hand to her pocket only to remember yet again how she would not be getting it back until the end of the day.

Everyone had fallen asleep for a while – well, Rose presumed Donna had, she still hadn't moved – but Saxon had been in before long to wake them up by banging loudly on the Doctor's desk, four solid beats. They had all jumped out of their skins, apart from Donna, and had been warned that, unless they all wanted another Saturday detention next weekend, they had better not be thinking about wasting time sleeping. Rose had tuned out of his ranting after about 20 seconds, but the message was clear: no more napping.

Head leaning on her hand, Rose caught sight of the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting a few desks along from her in the row in front – well, he had been sitting. Now he was standing, brow furrowed in concentration as he attempted to add another two books to the top of the book pyramid he was making. It was quite an achievement, built in the same way that a regular person might build a pyramid with cards – two books leant against each other to form a triangle with the desk, 2 of the triangles supporting a horizontal book lying across them, forming the base for the next layer. The Doctor was up to 5 layers, using big heavy books in order to make the most impressive tower that stretched across a couple of desks, making it necessary for him to stand up to reach the top of the pyramid. Rose didn't award him with her attention, but she did keep shooting glances at his efforts as he finished his fifth layer and built up his sixth.

He stopped at six, standing back to admire his efforts before sitting back down on his chair, propping his feet up on the desk and twiddling his thumbs, clearly trying to figure out what he should do next to while away the time before they got to go home.

Rose stopped sneaking looks at the Doctor and peered around at the rest of the room. Martha was staring at the piece of paper that had been given to her, twirling her pencil around in her fingers. She must have been contemplating what to write for her essay, although her unfocussed gaze betrayed the fact that she was not actually seeing the paper in front of her at all. Jack was slumped in his chair, throwing a ball of blu-tack between his hands rhythmically, staring into space the same as Martha. Donna appeared to be asleep – at least, she had her head on the desk, the hood of her coat flopping forward to conceal her face.

This room was sapping the life right out of them.

Suddenly enough to make Rose almost leap out of her seat, John Smith jumped up onto his desk, spinning around until he was facing the row behind him and staying there, cross legged with his hands clasped together. "So," he began swiftly, not looking at any one of them in particular, "what are you in for?"

Jack did his best to look bored, but his eyes took in the Doctor from head to toe before looking at Rose and letting out a bit of a sigh. Jack might have been flirty, but as a football player within a group of football playing friends, he didn't normally have time for odd or unpopular students. And the Doctor was definitely in the odd category. He was in the process of demonstrating this, as he pulled a pair of thick rimmed glasses out of his pocket and placed them on his face before continuing to stare expectantly at the rest of the people in the room. Their silence seemed to confuse him.

"You're not actually scared of Saxon, are you? Come on, he can't really do anything to you. The worst he can do is give you another detention, and they're not that bad. This one's shaping up to be quite fun, I reckon." Rose raised an eyebrow, and the Doctor caught her expression. "Well," he qualified, tilting his head to one side and considering, "it could be fun, if you lot would do more than just sit there like lemons the entire time."

"I just wanna finish this essay and get out of here," Martha grumbled quietly, drumming her pencil on the desk impatiently. The Doctor grinned at her, crumpling up his paper in his hand and chucking it over his shoulder.

"Oh, don't worry about that," he said cheerfully, sticking his pencil into the pocket of his jacket.

"Why not? Not all of us want to piss off the teachers like you do." Rose turned to Jack in surprise. What had prompted that? Sure, the Doctor didn't abide by many of the school rules, but there was no need for Jack to be so hostile about it.

The Doctor seemed surprised as well. "What's got your boxers in a twist?

"Stop it you two, just get on with it or Saxon's gonna be in here," Martha warned, but quietly enough that the two boys could pretend that they hadn't heard her.

Jack leaned back until his chair was resting on two legs and cocked his head to one side. "Well for a start you're getting on my nerves with your stupid optimism. Why don't you just shut up! There's four other people in here you know."

"God, you can count. See, I knew you had to be smart to be a football player."

"Yeah, well I can count the number of arrogant weirdos in the room too and guess what, that one comes out as one!"

"If you care so much about it, just ignore him!" Rose wasn't sure whose side she was on, but she was certain that this fight was going to get physical if it wasn't broken up soon.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, his eyes flicking between both Rose and Jack, before settling on Rose. "You couldn't ignore me if you tried." He grinned a mischievous grin and winked at her. Rose threw him a look that clearly said "you're not impressing anyone," hoping that he wouldn't notice the fact that she was blushing. If he did, he didn't say anything.

"Leave her alone!" Jack spat angrily at the Doctor.

"Hey, I don't need you fighting my battles for me, Harkness," Rose told him, bristling. "If I want him to leave me alone then I'll make him, it's nothing to do with you."

The Doctor seemed pleased by her words, though she wasn't sure why,

"Whatever, the point is that you spend your time doing pointless things and making life difficult for other people – not everyone can be like you."

The Doctor stood up, sliding off the edge of the desk and standing with his hands in his pockets. He was scrutinising Jack's face carefully, no doubt trying to figure out what had prompted this outburst. "What have I ever done to you?"

By now Jack was on his feet too, squaring up to the Doctor in a way that Rose was certain wasn't going to end well. Martha was sitting at her desk, pencil and paper forgotten as she stared at the two boys. She caught Rose's eye and widened her eyes slightly, indicating that she didn't really know what to do. "Oh I don't know," Jack replied, "what about the time you took the screws out of the door in the boys changing room, so it wouldn't stay closed and everyone who was walking past could see in."

"Wouldn't have thought you minded that, wasn't it you who streaked across the pitch when the girl's football team won the championship last term? And besides, that wasn't me, screws fall out all the time, the world's an imperfect place." He might have been lying, but Rose couldn't tell.

"Well it'd be a bit more perfect if it weren't for certain people being arseholes!"

The Doctor scoffed at this. "You're calling me an arsehole? Coming from you, a boy who seems to have no concept of anyone outside his idiotic football team and doesn't seem to have any goals outside sleeping with every single person in the school, I'll take that as a compliment."

"Just because I have friends! When was the last time you got invited anywhere, John? When was the last time you ate lunch at the same table as anyone else? Life's great when you don't care what anyone else thinks of you, isn't it? When you can do what you like because you don't have anyone who cares about you. You know, Smith, you don't even count. I mean if you disappeared forever it wouldn't make any difference. You may as well not even exist at this school."

Rose was aware that her mouth was hanging slightly open, but she couldn't seem to find the muscles to close it. That had been harsh, really unnecessary. John Smith might not exactly be the most sensible student in school, but he wasn't a bad person. He barely ever disrupted the learning of other students, he only pulled pranks that were funny and didn't cause serious damage, and he was clever. He would probably go on to university, maybe become a real doctor, he could do anything he wanted. Jack had been trying desperately to find something that could pierce the Doctor's carefree exterior, really hurt him. And by the look on his face as Jack finished speaking, he had managed it.

The Doctor's fists were clenched, along with his jaw. He looked properly angry; any trace of his trademark smile had disappeared. Rose wondered what he would do. He was notoriously non-violent, but in that moment she really wasn't sure whether he would live up to his reputation. Luckily, before Jack said anything else or the Doctor managed to retaliate, the argument was interrupted.

"Oh just shut up, you dumbos!" Everyone in the room froze, before turning in unison towards the desk in the furthest corner. Donna had sat up, flinging back the hood of her coat, and was glaring at them menacingly, hair standing up in a fiery red ring of static that gave her the look of a lion that had been disturbed from its slumber. "Give it a rest, it's bad enough being here without you two wittering on like idiots, just shut it or I'll clunk your heads together and don't think I'm bloody joking."

She folded her arms and rested her head on them, shutting herself off from the conversation as quickly as she had entered it. The other four sat stunned. Rose was the first to recover, allowing herself a smug smile which she quickly smothered.

"Well," she said to the two boys, who were both looking sheepish, the Doctor rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, "that told you."