Disclaimer: We understand, yes?
AN: Sorry about the lateness, I've been really busy with exams lately, not to mention my mind-numbing writers' block... D:
Part 12
Rose and the Doctor stepped out of the room and closed the door. The Doctor stopped, looking down one end of the hall, back up the other, before finally settling his gaze on the key in his hand, frowning. He paused and blinked, looking at the key in confusion.
"What?" Rose asked, before smirking, "Have you forgotten what a key is? How did you survive without me, Doctor?"
This seemed to snap the Doctor out of his reverie. "Barely," He replied truthfully, looking at her.
She took his hand and laced her fingers through his, smiling slightly, "What is it then?"
"The key," He held it to her, glancing around the hall again, "Has no number."
"No number?" Rose asked, taking it from him with her free hand. She turned it over, checking both sides, "No number."
"Yeah, we've established that," He pulled Rose down the corridor and around a corner, "The rooms don't have numbers, either."
"Maybe we should ask Jack," Rose suggested, "He could've set up a practical joke, for old time's sake, y' know?"
The Doctor nodded and they walked back down the corridor. They passed door after door, turned a corner, and passed a few more doors. After a few more minutes of doors, corners and frustrated sighs, they stopped.
"I think we've passed this door before, Doctor," Rose pointed at the said blank door, craning her neck around the Doctor to peer down the hall, "We're lost."
The Doctor frowned at the door momentarily before scoffing, "Rose, do you think, with my superior Timelord brain, that we have or ever will become lost?"
She stared at him pointedly.
"Oh," He frowned slightly, trying to retrace their steps in his head, "Uhm... Well, maybe we're not lost, just a little geographically challenged?"
Rose groaned and leaned against the wall, looking from the ambiguous door, down the corridor, before spotting something further down, "What's this?"
She waled a few paces down the corridor to a labelled door.
"Store cupboard," Rose turned and raised her eyebrows at the Doctor, her hand hovering above the handle, "Will this do for our talk, Doctor?"
He looked confused for a moment, before turning red as he realised what Rose was implying.
"Uh... Why... I mean, wh-," He babbled as Rose grinned, her tongue poking between her teeth, "What?"
"Oh, c'mon, you," She grabbed his hand again and led him into the small cupboard.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
It had been about 15 minutes since Rose and the Doctor had left the hotel room, to talk. Those left in the original room had been talking animatedly about everything and nothing; topics ranging from distant planets and civilisations to their lives before Torchwood and travels through time and space in the TARDIS. Donna had seemed to hit it off with everyone in the room, despite only knowing most of them for a few hours. She had formed bonds with the Torchwood team and was also beginning to run off on each of them.
After a particularly hilarious anecdote from Martha about her travels with the Doctor, which left the room just about falling off their chairs, tears of laugher forming in their eyes, Donna yawned widely.
"Oh, sorry, Martha, it was a great story," She stood and wandered to the kitchenette in the corner, "But I'm falling asleep and could really do with a cuppa."
"Yeah, me too," Gwen yawned, squinting across the room to Donna, who had begun rifling through the cupboards.
Martha stood and helped Donna locate the kettle and a few random tea bags, "No cups or mugs or anything."
Donna sighed, leaning against the counter, "I could just die."
Martha filled the kettle, plugged it into the wall and switched it on, "Well, what now, then?"
Jack stood and waled over to Martha and Donna, "Are you sure there aren't any here?"
Ianto and Gwen stood and made their way over to the group.
"I think there was some kind of storage cupboard on this level, just down the hall, with any luck it won't just be cleaning products and an endless supply of toilet roll," Ianto added from next to Gwen, glancing at Jack.
"Oh, yeah," Donna looked up slowly, "I think I saw something like that, too. Just around the corner, yeah?"
Ianto nodded.
"Perfect, come on Martha, I'll need another pair of hands," Donna pushed herself off the counter and walked with Martha to the door, before slipping through it into the corridor.
As soon as the door closed, Donna turned to her friend, "What do you reckon they're up to?"
Martha turned to her, a meaningful look on her face, "Oh, I really don't want to know."
They paused for a second before bursting out laughing.
"Come on," Donna managed to gasp a few moments later, "We'd better get those cups."
Donna and Martha wandered down the corridor and turned the corner, desperately trying to stop sniggering at what they may think the Doctor and Rose are up to. They reached the store cupboard seconds later, carefully glanced up and down the corridor and pulled the door open.
Martha and Donna simultaneously gasped.
"Well," Martha managed weakly, eyes fixed on the couple in the cupboard, who hadn't noticed they had visitors, in a sort of morbid fascination, "We don't have to guess anymore..."
Donna, who had managed to snap out of her trance, shouted, "Oi, Space Boy!"
The Doctor and Rose sprang apart from where they'd been madly snogging in the corner of the room, and stared at their guests, wide-eyed. They immediately began frantically doing up buttons and smoothing down their hair, both extremely red in the face.
"Uhm, well... What..? Got it!" The Doctor lifted up his hand, two fingers together as if he was holding something small, "Eyelash. Nasty little bugger, lucky we got that out, eh, Rose?"
"Uh, yeah, thanks, well done," She nodded vigorously, still trying to flatten her hair.
"Right..." Donna looked at them with a mixture of scepticism and amusement, "We're just looking for some mugs. Seen any?"
The Doctor glanced across toward the shelves to his left, before grabbing a whole box of white, porcelain mugs and thrusting them into Donna's arms, "There. Was that all?"
"Uh, yeah, thanks," Donna and Martha backed into the hall and closed the door behind them.
They walked down the corridor slowly, almost shell-shocked.
"Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh," Donna prayed quietly to Martha and herself.
There was a sharp intake of breath and then...
Too late.
TBC...
AN: It may be quite a while before I post another part ducks under table, sorry. Reviews are, as always, welcomed. :D