A/N: Hehe, I'm glad this is going down well with you guys :D I feel honoured! (Throws rose petals over all reviewers) Uberness:)

I'm sorry for the length of this chapter, but I couldn't find anywhere to cut it into two in a neat way. Next chapter's called Ginger Irishman, BTW. Well, I'm 80 sure it's called that anyway. Wow. This is a bloody short A/N. Everyone cheer! Wooo!

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Chapter 3 – Balls Of Steel

"Wait here," Jackie had told him sternly before disappearing into the kitchen to make him and Rose a drink. "Don't touch anythin'. Don't breathe on anythin'."

"Yes ma'am." The Doctor gave a mock salute and he fell down onto the living room sofa, looking around the decorated room with mild interest. It was surprising how many framed photos Jackie had of her only daughter in her living room. Without thinking, he got up and walked silently over to the carved oak shelf above the fireplace, glancing over the many, many photos wedged between various ornaments.

He reached up and took a silver framed photo down from the wooden shelf, slipping on his glasses to look at it closer. It was a photo of a twenty year younger looking Jackie holding baby Rose in her arms, and there was Peter Tyler. His arm was draped loosely around Jackie's shoulders, a smile beaming all over his face. Who was to know that man's destiny was to be killed in a car accident just a few months later?

"That's my favourite photo," said an unexpected voice from behind him suddenly, nearly making him drop the picture in surprise. He wheeled quickly around to see Jackie staring at him with her arms folded defiantly, and The Doctor hastily slipped off his glasses, stuffing them speedily into his pocket.

"Sorry," he muttered guiltily. He put the photo gently back onto the shelf, intending to leave all photos well alone, but as he drew his hand away it knocked an ornament, which instantly went flying down off the shelf and towards the floor.

"Sorry!" he yelled, diving just in time to catch the china elephant, and he carefully put it strategically back on the shelf. "Sorry," he said quietly again, backing slowly away from the shelf, smashing straight into the coffee table.

"Sorry!" he shouted again, hearing something drop to the floor as a pain started throbbing in his leg. He quickly jogged over to pick up the wooden box that had fallen, putting it back on the table. He promptly straightened up, but inevitably his knee hit the table underneath with such force the whole thing toppled over and everything on and in it went crashing to the floor.

"Sorry!" He receded away in surprise, ignoring the pulsating pain that was now in his knee, backing straight into the shelf above the fireplace. The right shelf support finally decided after years of supporting ten tonnes of weight to dislodge slightly, but it was enough. The wood slanted down diagonally, the ornaments and photos sliding down like a ball on a hill, hitting the stone floor around the fireplace with a smash.

"Sorry…sorry…sorry…" The Doctor rhythmically said after each object smashed onto the stone. He flinched as each smash came, after fifteen he lost count of how many smashes and 'sorry's there were, but when the ending finally did come, there was a brief moment of blissful silence.

Just as The Doctor was set to run from the oncoming Jackie, the right support broke altogether and the oak shelf came swiftly swinging down, narrowly missing his leg, but hitting a far more delicate place a few inches right.

The pain was instant.

He swore extremely loudly and for a very long time, thankfully in Gallifreyian. He doubled over in utter agony as the shelf slowed down it's swinging, now only held by one feeble bolt through the wall.

He should have moved his foot. He should have. He knew that shelf wouldn't last long, and if he bothered to move then the next collision wouldn't have happened.

But it did.

The nail gave up holding the shelf, and the entire thing fell down to the floor, the only obstruction being The Doctor's left foot. Despite how painful his crushed foot now was, the pain was diminutive compared to the one he was experiencing right now a little further up.

Words couldn't express the overall pain right now. This was pain being extremely painful. This was pain after pain had eaten pain for breakfast and drove in pain into Paintown to shop for pain in the agony shop. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes from the constant, undeniable pain, pain, pain.

So instead, he just whimpered silently, falling down sideways onto the refreshingly fluffy rug. He buried his face into the wonderfully soft material, hoping to god Jackie had gone to make a cup of tea and had missed all of this.

But as he felt someone stand tall over him, he had a sudden neural impulse to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. But he couldn't move for the agony. He was totally helpless, so instead, he just cried out in a small but high voice,

"Please don't hit me Jackie!"

Then he heard Rose's laugh.

"Didn't mum say not to touch anything?"

"Mmm," he squeaked, though he didn't want to talk. Just lay here for a few minutes. Or hours. Or days. Weeks. Weeks were good.

"You going to get up?" Rose asked, and he shook his head slowly in reply. "Alright, get up, now." Rose grabbed on of his weak arms and tried to pull forcedly on it, but he was dead weight.

"Let me die here," he said quietly to the floor, and could hear Jackie laughing from somewhere over the other side of the room. Nine hundred years of space travel and he'd never experienced or envisioned being rendered useless in this way infront of his companion's mother.

"Fine! Lay there if you like." Rose was almost in fits of laughter, dropping his arm and sitting down next to him crossed-legged, watching his face expectantly. "You're s'posed to be a nine hundred year old alien Timelord super race, and you're tellin' me you ain't got balls of steel?"

"Yes," The Doctor mumbled quietly.

"It was only a little hit!"

"It was pure oak!" The Doctor protested with a little more power. "I mean, why do you humans put a wooden shelves above fireplaces right where it's a liability to others? Especially people with a certain type of manlihood to sustain?"

"Okay, slow down there, you're gettin' irritable." Rose impatiently grabbed both his arms and started dragging him towards the sofa. "Gimme a hand mum!" she gasped.

Jackie slowly strode over, savouring every second of his pain. She grabbed The Doctor's legs, intending to lift him onto the sofa with Rose.

"Ow! Watch the ankle!" The Doctor cried out, and on impulse Jackie dropped his left foot where it hit the floor with a thud. "Ow!" The Doctor cried out again, and Rose gave him a gentle whack over the head.

"Stop moaning!" She pulled his top half onto the sofa before Jackie pushed the rest of him on.

"Mum, can you go get some ice or somethin'?" Rose asked, sitting on the sofa next to his feet and pulling off The Doctor's shoe and sock, revealing an unhealthily swollen looking foot. "Alright, what am I looking for?" Rose carefully propped the ankle onto a royal red felt cushion, examining it thoroughly.

"Well, for a broken ankle, pain, swelling, pain, bruising, pain, bleeding, pain, sticking out pieces of bone and…oh, pain," he finished dimly.

"Well, you've got swelling, there aren't any bones sticking out…bruising looks pretty bad…no blood though."

"Ow!" The Doctor yelled as she pressed firmly on his ankle.

"And I'm guessing we have pain." She grinned evilly at his aggrieved face, and he just glared at her with an extremely sarcastic smile. "So what does that mean anyway?"

"Probably just bruising from the impact." He raised a small smile. "Which means I'll be walking in about ten minutes. Then we can get out of here."

"That by far is the most pathetic way I have ever seen anyone hurt their ankle."

Those were the motivating words that came from Jackie Tyler's mouth as she dropped a bag of frozen peas onto his head before adding, "think yourself lucky I didn't film it and send it into You've Been Framed!"

"Thanks Jackie, I love you too." The Doctor smiled sweetly, wincing as Rose took the frozen peas and pressed them firmly onto his swollen ankle.

"You are a complete and total idiot. You know that, don't you?" Rose was finding this almost as hysterical as Jackie was.

"It was her fault!" The Doctor gestured towards Jackie, who was still smiling.

"D'you want any frozen peas for the other area?" she asked, trying not to laugh.

"Oh go throw yourself off a cliff."

"Yes. Sorry." Though she didn't sound sorry, just highly amused. He could only glare at her from where he lay as she gave a medical box to Rose, smiling her annoying smiley smile then just made you want to hit something.

Well, that's what The Doctor was feeling right now.

Jackie really couldn't contain her immense joy at The Doctor's pain. "I bet you got a 'angover and all!"

Rose and The Doctor both froze.

"How d'you know we were drunk?" Rose asked, exchanging a worried glance with The Doctor, pausing in her actions to bandage his foot.

"Well, it was a bit obvious Rose," Jackie tutted at her daughter's ignorance. "Especially after The Doctor came runnin' in, jumped into the swivel chair, span 'round three times yellin', 'wheeee!' then fell off onto the floor."

Rose couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. Catching The Doctor's stare, she quickly shut her mouth, biting her tongue to stop another onset of laughter as she wound the last of the bandage around The Doctor's foot.

"Oh come on," she gave The Doctor a playful push. "You gotta admit – that is a bit funny."

"I dunno what you're laughin' at Rose – you were the one tryin' to climb the wall usin' only your lips," Jackie added, and it was The Doctor's turn to laugh this time. Rose glared dangerously at him, before jumping into a sitting position on his stomach, which made him shut up immediately.

"And god only knows how the both of you got that banana costume…"

"Mum, I don't wanna hear anymore…" Rose started bouncing up and down on The Doctor's stomach to make it as uncomfortable as possible for him. "As long as we didn't join the scouts, I'm fine."

"You…in a scout's outfit!" The Doctor's grin became widespread as he dragged Rose off of his stomach so he could breathe again, and held her tightly to prevent her climbing back onto him.

Then the phone started ringing.

"Mine!" Rose yelled, stretching forward as far as she could to try and grab the phone sitting on the desk behind the sofa. The Doctor laxed his grip on her slightly as she stretched a little further, taking hold of the phone and pressing it to her ear.

"Hello?" She tried not to giggle down the line, incase the person on the other end got the wrong idea. There was a small muffle at the end, and something that sounded like static fizzled through the speaker of the phone.

"Hello?" Rose asked again, frowning in concentration. The Doctor gave her another tight squeeze and she couldn't help but burst into a set of helpless giggles.

"Sorry," she apologised down the phone, hitting The Doctor scoldingly with her free hand. "Doctor…will you get…hello?" she tried again, but the phone offered no reply past the static. "Line's dead." She was about to pull it away from her ear and pop it back onto its accompanying holder, when a single word in a scratchy, whiney voice said,

"Timelord…!"

All the colour drained from her face as she stared at the far wall, horrified.

"What?" she whispered in disbelief, praying and hoping she'd just misheard. There was no possible way anyone could know he was a Timelord that knew Jackie's home phone on Earth, who wasn't in this room.

Except…

"Mickey, if this is you, stop it. Just say what you wanna say."

There was more static, and Rose almost considered hanging up on the bastard. He knew how dangerous it was to go shouting out The Doctor was an alien, and that The Doctor would have to take the smash of the consequences if it leaked out.

She was about to tell him goodbye rather abruptly, when the voice, definitely not Mickey's said squeakily in its scream, "you'd better watch your pretty little head Rose Tyler, 'cause I'm gonna get you, your Timelord and your baby a one way ticket to oblivion."