My very very favorite of all the Recipes for Disaster, this one has been saved to celebrate Olfactory_Ventriloquism's birthday. Today is the big day (12/23), and I hope this story does such a fantastic occasion justice!

This confection, a tried and true standard, is usually served freshly steamed and piping hot. An interesting variation may be found in this recipe. Place one Time Lord in Leather within reach. Remove leather. Decaffeinate one pink and yellow human. Enclose container. Add caffeine. Run away.

The Retribution

On Saturday morning, Rose walked into the kitchen, waved a bleary hello to the Doctor, and poured herself a cup of tea. She paid absolutely no attention to anything else, so single-minded was her focus on her tea cup. She was at least half asleep. Vaguely, she noted a loud scraping noise, some thumps and quite a bit of that chiming cursing of his, but she didn't pay any attention to it. Her caffeine stream had too much blood in it and she wasn't thinking clearly.

Tea at last in hand, she took several long sips and sighed contentedly. She walked past the table, only pausing long enough to run her hand lightly through the Doctor's short cropped hair, and wandered over to the pantry to rummage through it.

There were three boxes of cereal in the cupboard and they were all empty. "Jack," she complained bitterly and reached to chuck them into the recycler. She turned and blinked at the Doctor, noting he was a bit pink in the face for some reason, and waved the last empty box at him before she binned it. "We're out. Need to stop for some more."

"No problem," he muttered. "'Least, I don't think so."

She opened the fridge, pulled out a few groceries and took them to the stove. "Bacon and eggs all right or have you already eaten?"

"No," he said softly. "That's fine."

"'K," she said, and finished her tea, then reached around him to seize the teapot.

"I've got it," he said and took her mug from her.

Rose nodded, blinked blearily at his bare shoulder, and rubbed it with a curious hand while he poured her a second mug of tea. He didn't often show up without his leather jacket, after all, never mind missing his jacket and his jumper. He passed her the cup and she noticed that, for some reason, his hands appeared to be shaking.

She turned back to the stove and started rummaging through the cabinets for the pans she usually used. She grumbled a small curse when she realized she'd forgotten something. "Can you hand me the butter?" she asked the Doctor.

Butter and a pint of cream were delivered to her side while she started the bacon. "Scrambled, then?" she asked.

"Suits the situation," the Doctor replied, sounding quite cheerful, now.

She nodded and went back to her cooking, pausing to have a bit more tea from time to time, while the thumping and swearing continued from the direction of the door. She glanced over at the Doctor, figured he must have forgotten his boots as well, and asked him if he could fix her another cuppa.

He sidled past her carefully, took her mug, and turned. She hip-checked him lightly, chuckling, as she reached up to grab plates from the overhead cabinet.

He put the mug beside her, swore loudly and gratingly, and there was more thumping from the direction of the door. Rose sighed and threw a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. He was obviously in a bad mood this morning, and would probably need a good breakfast to deal with it.

Her third cup of tea finished, she finally felt like she was alive again, and started serving up their plates. "I'll put Jack's in the microwave for him, I guess. You want jam or marmalade?"

"I'll get it," the Doctor offered.

She set the plates on the table, watched him saunter across the room, and her brain tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she would mind terribly if it turned up now because she was missing something obvious without it. She shrugged and reached for the cutlery.

The Doctor leaned up against the cabinet across the kitchen from her, and asked, "Grape or strawberry?"

She glanced up at him, dropped the forks, and then danced out of the way while they fell around her feet.

"Morning, Rose," the Doctor said, playfully, and continued to lean.

"Um..." she said.

"Don't have um. Grape or strawberry? Might can scare up some apple butter if I look around hard enough."

Rose rubbed her eyes and looked again. "Doctor?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Am I awake?"

"You are now," he said.

"Are you sure?" She banged her hand on the counter, and it hurt, but nothing changed.

"Well?" he asked.

"Are you awake?" she suggested.

"Wondered that myself for awhile, but then you turned up, an' nothin' much happened, so I'm pretty sure I am, yeah, why?"

"Well, it's just..." She decided that she was hallucinating, since he was standing there so casually, so she changed the subject. "Grape."

He nodded and reached into the fridge to find the requested grape jam. Rose watched all this and decided if she was somehow dreaming, it wasn't one of the usual ones, so it would probably be in her best interest to stay on this side of the kitchen.

Then he bent over and she bit her lip, hard, over the whimper that rose in her throat. "What was that?" the Doctor asked.

"Nothing," she squeaked.

She was almost certain she heard him chuckle. He stood up and turned around, jam bottle displayed proudly in his hand and Rose hastily averted her eyes. Her senses all started screaming at her, insisting that the view was much better closer to the jam bottle than the floor and maybe she should just check it again. With enormous effort, she ignored them.

There was a scrape of the Doctor's chair being pulled out, so Rose turned around and fetched more cutlery. Bending to sweep up the spilled forks, she managed to force her eyes to linger only on the bare feet under the table and nothing else. Still wasn't good for her - he had sexy feet, if that was even possible. Maybe it was an alien thing.

"You coming?" he asked.

Every drop of blood in her body decided to go in a direction other than the one it had been going in. "Sure," she squeaked as she watched his nostrils flare. Just ignore it, she told herself firmly. It's some damn alien something, or you're just imagining things, it's not real, it IS NOT REAL!!

"You all right, Rose?"

"'M fine," she insisted as she lowered herself gingerly into her chair and tried not to squirm.

The Doctor got up, walked around her, and fetched the butter. She bit her lip harder and snatched up her fork, hoping that keeping her hand busy would prevent it from doing anything stupid.

When he settled back down, his cheeks and ears were pink again, but he applied himself to his food. Rose followed suit. "Got a pen?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Why?"

"Thought I'd make a shopping list. I'm not doing groceries your way again, all that wandering around, fiddling with stuff, it's..."

"Domestic!" she said with a real laugh. She reached behind her and pulled open the junk drawer, rifling through it until she found a blue biro and note pad. She passed them over, and sat back to watch him as his eyes flickered attentively over the cabinets and the fridge. He couldn't actually see what was inside them without opening them, could he? Did Time Lords have x-ray vision?

Did she?

That would explain a bit. She glanced at the cabinets. Guess not. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Calculating," the Doctor said and stuffed most of a piece of toast into his mouth.

He ended up with jam in a place that would have made her scream with frustration if she wasn't hallucinating. Her whole body shook, actually trembled with desperation to get over there and clean up the jam. The Doctor looked up at her and blushed bright red this time, before snatching up a napkin and removing the jam. Rose hated the napkin with a purple passion, but then it had saved her from doing something abysmally stupid, so she couldn't complain, could she?

She was about three and a half seconds from exploding when the Doctor leaned over his tablet and started scribbling. Rose munched a slice of bacon. The Doctor ate with one hand and scribbled with the other.

"See you decided to go with the cliche on the handwriting," she observed dryly.

He looked up at her and grinned. "But you can read it." He waved the tablet in front of her face as that grin got broader and brighter.

"Mostly 'cuz mine sucks, too," she answered.

He nodded. "Good point." Then he set the tablet down and proceeded with his writing and eating... with the opposite hands he'd started with.

"You're ambi... ambidextry-thingee," she said.

"Ambidextrous," he corrected. "Can be. Genius, me."

"You think you're so impressive," she teased, like she usually would.

"I can do many impressive things with my hands, Rose Tyler."

"I'm sure," she said, after she'd looked at those huge, calloused hands for a moment, but before she'd managed to get any sort of sensible control over her vocal chords, obviously, or her brain. She felt her face erupt with color and when those blue eyes shot up to meet hers, she thought about diving under the table to hide.

Would, too, except that would make things worse, what with the circumstances being what they were.

He looked quite embarrassed by her observation for a moment, but when he noticed her blush, his eyes took on a merry, mischievous twinkle, and his eyebrows arched expressively. She was almost positive she squeaked when he took her free hand in one of his, because that deep-chested chuckle of his started. It sounded different, darker somehow, more... god help her, she was really losing it now... more sensual.

His fingers stroked hers gently, lightly. He was turning her on and all he was doing was holding her hand. She was going to kill him. She was going to melt into a puddle of desperately wanton goo. She was going to jump him in three seconds. Two seconds. One...

The door swung open and Jack swaggered inside. Rose blinked as the spell broke and the Doctor drew his hand away from hers. "Don't close that," the Doctor snapped.

"Where's your shirt?" Jack asked, holding the door open as requested.

Rose blinked. The Doctor was gone. "Wha...?" she managed.

Jack looked out into the hall and whistled. "Come to think of it, Doc, where're your pants?!"

Rose told herself firmly that it was time to wake up now, but was interrupted by the sound of a slamming door. "What just happened?" she asked, dazed and baffled.

"Well, I got a great view of the Doc's backside, but I'm thinking it's not anywhere near as great as the one you got."

Rose closed her eyes and rubbed them firmly, then jumped to her feet and cornered Jack, prodding his chest with her index finger. "Right. That was a terrible trick to play, Jack. How dare you?! The Doctor's been nice to you, let you stay, only tried to throw you out one airlock. You know how important his dignity is to him, how could you..."

Jack held up both hands in surrender. "I didn't do it," he insisted. "Honestly, Rose, you know me better than that. I would never leave the man naked somewhere."

Rose thought about it and deflated. "Good point," she agreed. "Naked, yes. Leave, not so much. God, he's gonna be hiding for days."

"Probably." Then Jack did a double take. "Are you trying to tell me you stood here in this kitchen with that and... did NOTHING?? Are you crazy?"

Rose sighed. "I was half asleep," she claimed defensively.

"I bet he will hide," Jack accused. "He'll be so upset. Bet you didn't even give him one compliment, did you?"

"Shut up," Rose grumbled.

"You should apologize," Jack told her.

"For what?!" she demanded. "I didn't do this, and obviously, he didn't do it on purpose so..."

"Oh," Jack realized. "I suppose not..."

Rose suddenly worried. A thousand and one very good reasons to worry popped into her head. "Oh, God, Jack, what do I do?"

"At a guess?" Jack said. "Don't piss off the TARDIS."