For once, I have nothing to say. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy today.

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who or anything else that I may have accidently infringed in this chapter.

Sigh
By LilyRose XD

'Please-men' attempting
To catch the man
Marked as dangerous
But he has a plan...

IX

Elude

It was mostly the stamping footsteps on the floor and the yelling that woke the Doctor up in the morning. He turned over on his pillows and tried to block out the sound and go back to sleep but instead the sounds just got louder. He muttered incomprehensibly into a pillow and put his hands over his ears but he could still hear it. He sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and blinking blearily around.

Even in his drowsy state he could make out the words of the yelling, though their meaning was beyond his sleepy brain at the moment.

"—floor is all burnt through and I don't understand it."
"Sir, we found this bin with burnt fragments of the tent and the fake grass that's supposed to be on display here."
"WHAT?!" thundered the first voice, "YOU MEAN THE FIRE WAS DELIBERATE!?"
"It appears so."
"I WILL NOT HAVE PEOPLE BURNING DOWN MY STORE. DO YOU HEAR ME?! GO AND FIND THE CULPRITS!"

The second voice must have just nodded because there was no reply.

The Doctor struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. "Floor is all burnt through… burnt fragments of the tent...find the culprits…"

And then it clicked. He was in the department store, he'd fallen asleep on this pile of pillows after accidently burning down that tent and having to put out the blaze. And now it was morning and they'd found the wreckage that he'd thrown in one of the store bins.

There was another shout. But this one was much closer. The Doctor jumped up and spun around to see an employee racing towards him. The Doctor was already running. He rushed down the aisle, weaving through clothes racks and shelves, while desperately trying to remember where the exit was. He dashed past startled employees and once, the loud shouting man that he'd heard before, who tried to make a grab for him but missed.

He kept running around the store with more than a few employees chasing him now and possibly the shouting man too. Then suddenly he saw the green glow of an exit sign and he followed it, bursting through a clothes rack and then vaulting a check-out counter before sliding under the partly open garage-like doors out the front.

He kept on through the shopping centre. Early-morning shoppers blurring at the edges of his vision as he sprinted past them. He found a door marked 'stairs' and ran through. He fled down several flights of stairs before emerging in a car park. He dodged cars, with many horns honking at him, and finally made it out to the street.

He glanced over his shoulder while he kept running to see that the employees and the shouting man had stopped when they had reached the road. He was momentarily relieved until he saw the shouting man reach into his pocket and bring out his phone which he rapidly dialled and then held to his ear.

The Doctor turned his neck around again so he was facing forwards and had to rapidly change direction to avoid a pole. His temporary relief was gone, and he realised he was in as much trouble as ever.

He kept going though. He didn't stop running. It didn't matter that he didn't really know where the Powell Estate was, he knew he'd find it eventually. He just had to get there before the police found him.

**************

It was only an hour or so later that he reached it. He ran through the courtyard and up the many flights of stairs to the apartment, listening out for sirens and unfortunately hearing some. He ran down the balcony to the apartment, drawing out his sonic screwdriver, buzzing open the door and launching himself inside.

He leaned back against the orange door, breathing heavily, sonic screwdriver clutched in one hand. It was extremely lucky that Jackie hadn't been in the hallway at the time but now he could hear her blundering about and was sure that she would come and see why the door had slammed seemingly of its own accord.

He looked up the hallway to Rose's door, saw it was too far for him to reach before Jackie got to the hallway. He glanced left and right. The door to his right was Jackie's room, and he knew it would be a mistake to go in there again. So he looked to his left. There was a door there that he'd never gone through before. He rushed to it and turned the handle, but it seemed to be locked. He could hear Jackie's stamping footsteps in the lounge room, rapidly approaching.

He gave the door a quick buzz with the sonic screwdriver and pulled himself inside just as Jackie reached the hallway.

It took the Doctor more than a few seconds to realise that he'd been in this room before. That had seemed such a long time ago. Though it must have only been a few weeks or so.

"He looked into the first room on his left, the door halfway open, or halfway closed. This was the room he'd been put in after his regeneration, but there was no bed in it now. It was just full of junk. Not junk, he realised, after taking a few steps into the room, but stuff. Pete's old stuff.

He doubted that the door had ever been opened before last Christmas when his regeneration had gone wrong and he'd been left to rest in here. And he doubted that it had ever been open since. Maybe Rose had come in here occasionally during her childhood, to sit on the floor amongst the boxes and odd knickknacks and pretend that her father was alive and this was his workroom and he was just out for a cup of tea, but Jackie wouldn't come in here."

He heard her footsteps plodding down the hallway, so he aimed the sonic screwdriver at Pete's door and locked it again. He heard her open each door in turn, looking for him, until finally Jackie ended up outside Pete's door. But she didn't try to open it. She must have just stood there for a few minutes because he didn't hear her footsteps retreating. So he just waited, silent as a shadow. Maybe it was remembering going into Pete's room a few weeks ago that did it, that made him remember, that allowed him to make the connection between Jackie standing outside this door, and himself standing outside Rose's.

"He stopped outside her room. Waited. Breathed. His breath seemed so loud to his ears, but not nearly as loud as the thumping of both his hearts as he stood there outside her door. He didn't know why he was hesitating, it just seemed…right to stop and wait and remember."

It was when he heard her walk away that he realised what he'd realised before. Jackie wouldn't come in here. There were too many memories.

He then realised the implications of that statement. He could stay here. He could be close to Rose and avoid Jackie by staying in Pete's room, where Jackie wouldn't tread. It was like his safe zone in a game of tag.

It was now that he examined the room. It was pretty much the same as it ended up to be when he visited, except the covering of dust was only thin, and there was a double bed in the room as well. He was sure that this used to be a guest bedroom, but when Pete died, Jackie must have moved his stuff in here as well. It was then that there was a knock at the door.

He jumped slightly, before remembering that Jackie didn't come in here, and wouldn't have knocked anyway if she did. Even though he was sure it was Rose, he still unlocked and opened the door cautiously in case Jackie was in the hallway still. But she wasn't. It was just Rose smiling up at him. He hurriedly pulled her inside and closed and locked the door again. Just in case.

As soon as he turned away from the door, she launched herself at him, clinging onto his leg again with desperation. He chuckled softly and lifted her up and swung her around in front of him, grinning. He then sat down on the bed, causing a small cloud of dust to rise from it, before setting Rose down on her feet.

She scrambled up onto the bed, burying herself in his coat, before whispering.

"I thought you were gone forever, Doc."
He laughed softly again, patting her head.
"The bad policemen couldn't keep me locked up!" he told her proudly. "I got away."
She grinned up at him before it suddenly faded and she adopted a fearful look.
The Doctor leaned down, with a slight concerned frown on his face, as he said.

"What's wrong, Rose?"
She swallowed. "I think Mummy called the please-men again."
He frowned some more. Please-men? But then his mouth formed an small 'O'. Policemen. Jackie had called the police on him. Again.

He sighed.

Just as he did so there was a loud knock on the front door. He heard Jackie stomp up the hallway towards it and then the door was opened and the policemen were being ushered inside.

"We'll find him, ma'm, don't you worry."
"It's not me I'm worried about," replied Jackie. "It's my daughter."

Rose jumped up as she was mentioned. She pushed the Doctor away from the door.

"You gots to hide, Doc," she told him, still pushing him.

He allowed himself to be pushed while he tried to think. He couldn't get out of this room without Jackie or the policemen seeing him. But there was nowhere to hide in this room either. Not even a window to escape out of. But Rose seemed to know what she was doing. She was now crouching on the floor and crawling over the floorboards, obviously looking for something. But he wasn't sure if this 'something' would help him or not. So he had to ask.

"Rose, what are you doing?"
"There are some floorboards, Doc. In dis room, there are some floorboards that aren't nailed propserly cause Daddy used to hide some of his stuff from Mummy."

The Doctor couldn't help grinning as he imagined Pete trying to hide some of his inventions-in-progress from the prising eyes of Jackie. He kneeled down on the floor next to Rose, still keeping an ear out for the policemen who seemed to be talking to Jackie in the kitchen, and ran his eyes over the floorboards, looking for some un-nailed ones. He found them at once.

There was a small section of them right beside the double bed. He ran his long fingers in the cracks and prised them up quickly, as Jackie and the policemen could start searching at any moment. But he was instantly filled with deep disappointment. There was no way he could fit in the small space below the floor that he'd opened up. It would have been big enough for Rose, easily, but definitely not big enough for a 6 foot Time Lord.

He frowned at Rose questionably, and was given the answer.

"Use the magic wand, Doc," she told him.

He almost smacked himself on the forehead. How could he be so stupid? He had the sonic screwdriver to make the space bigger for him. He hurriedly buzzed it, and the plaster below the floorboards expanded slightly. It still didn't look big enough for him, but he was sure that it was. He then aimed the screwdriver at the door and buzzed it again. The door unlocked with a click.

"Go on, Rose. I'll be fine. Just don't tell your mother that I'm here."

She nodded once before disappearing out the door. He locked the door again before lowering himself into the space below before placing the floorboards that he'd prised up back where they belonged.

The space wasn't that big, he was soon to find out. It was big enough for him, but only just. He couldn't turn around or move at all really. He was just stuck staring at the underside of the floorboards with dust or fragments of plaster occasionally falling onto his face as he disturbed them.

There must have been half a dozen policemen at least. Maybe twice that even. It was hard to tell when they all stampeded up and down the hallway and through the rooms with their black shiny police boots. He soon found out that Jackie had a key to this room. Of course, he'd already known that otherwise it couldn't have been locked in the first place, but he'd been hoping rather that she'd lost it or something. But, alas, no.

She had a key, but she didn't mean that she came in. He could hear no words exchanged outside Pete's door between Jackie and the policemen. But they seemed quieter than before when they came in. Boots not stomping so loudly, voices not so harsh. Maybe they too, had a room like this somewhere, full of nothing but memories. Or maybe it was just their police training that made them seem sympathetic, the Doctor didn't know.

But they searched the room like they searched any other. One of them even stood on the Doctor's loose floorboards once. And all the time they were in the room, he hardly dared to breathe. Cause if they found him, it would be much worse than before, he'd escaped, he'd come back, they could have more charges laid on him, they could take him away somewhere and he'd never get back to his TARDIS, never get back to his grieving and eventually, maybe his travelling. He seemed doomed to exist here. Always.

But they didn't find him. They trudged up and down. They searched. They questioned Jackie. But nothing. They didn't find him. And he was so grateful to Rose. Because without her, he'd have been arrested.

*************

It was later, much later when he emerged. Long after the police had gone, in fact. He didn't come out until Rose came back for him. Because he trusted her now more than ever after what she'd done for him. She didn't even know him that well yet. And he smiled as it reminded him of all the times when they'd been travelling, when she'd helped someone – whether alien or human – when she didn't even know them.

He'd locked the door with the sonic screwdriver again, not that it would do much good if Jackie had the key, and he was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bed while Rose was looking through the boxes of Pete's stuff that filled most of the room.

The Doctor realised that he might be alright now. Or, at least, he was better off than before. He had a room in which to hide, with the hiding place under the floorboards if the police ever came looking for him, he had the supplies that he'd picked up from the department store in his pocket including bananas and marmalade and he was close to Rose if a Time Window appeared. So he just needed to keep out of Jackie's way whenever he left the room and avoid the police in the streets and he'd be alright.

It was then that he remembered that he'd bought a teddy bear for Rose in the department store. He drew it out of his pocket and gave it to her and she grinned at him and hugged him before proudly naming it Jaffy.

He was staring at the wall, patting Rose's hair while she played with Jaffy and smiling distantly when it appeared.

He knew it was a Time Window because it hung in mid air and he could see the SS Madame de Pompadour spaceship on the other side. He wondered suddenly if it had been renamed the SS Rose Marion Tyler. He jumped up, which startled Rose who looked up at him with concern, still clutching Jaffy. He opened his mouth to say goodbye to Rose but saw the Time Window flickering out of the corner of his eye. Hating himself for not saying anything to Rose, but also excited at the prospect of getting his TARDIS and life back, he ran towards the window as it continued to flicker.

But just before he reached it, it gave a final flicker and was gone. And the Doctor ran into the wall behind it.

He ended up lying on his back, looking up the ceiling.

He heard Rose giggling a bit at the sight of him sprawled on the floor. He meant to mock-glare at her for laughing at him but realised how funny he must have looked, running into a wall. And even though he'd lost his chance of getting back for now, he turned to the giggling Rose and had to laugh too.

Next chapter up next week

...Wait...was that a sort of happy ending? Something is definitely wrong.

Oh, and since it is.

Make it last.

Thanks to all reviewers, keep it up =D