The following day, the Doctor and Rose acted as though the previous evening's conversation had never happened. Neither of them brought it up, and Rose knew that he'd never apologise for the harshness of his words or his cowardice, so she tried to put it to the back of her mind. There was an adventure on an alien planet to be had, so she was all for shoving thoughts of the Time Lord - and his hypocrisy and double standards and his downright lies - right out of her head, if possible.
Within hours, they found trouble, and it was just the thing to keep Rose occupied.
They soon discovered that Reinette really didn't like getting locked up in a prison cell. It was a new experience for Mickey, too, and he was also complaining. For the Doctor and Rose, it was pretty normal, so they found the other two's moaning funny at first. Then a bit annoying.
"Look, we'll get out. We always do," said Rose, through clenched teeth. Mickey had been yabbering on in one ear about how it was 'typical of you and the Doctor to go looking for trouble, and now look where we've ended up!' And Reinette, who was seated on the other side of her with her eyes fixed on the Doctor's backside as he paced back and forth the length of the cell, kept making these little sighs of frustration, her forehead perpetually pinched into a frown. They had only been in here for just over a minute, and already they were getting incredibly impatient, and as such, Rose was getting impatient with them.
"But what if we don't?" Mickey grumbled. "They took his screwdriver!"
"Just be glad they put us all in a cell together," remarked the Doctor, as he finally stopped pacing and came over to the bench they were sitting on. "Budge up," he said to Mickey, plonking himself between him and Rose. He stretched his legs out in front of him and hummed thoughtfully. Rose hid her smile. "Right, let's brainstorm," he announced. "What have we got?"
Rose liked this game. This, she could do. She said, "Okay. Fourteen guards; all half-dragon, half-humanoid. Seven Khatasan officers waiting outside, in front of the entrance, discussing whether we should be executed or not. No sonic, no psychic paper, no bananas, no phones. No way of breaking through the door 'cos we've nothing heavy enough in here. No ventilation shafts or windows to crawl through. No spoons to dig our way out over the course of several decades. No food or drink, and a planet with no concept of the Geneva Conventions, let alone any regard for intergalactic law."
The Doctor grinned at her proudly. The other two looked at her in bewilderment. Rose shrugged. "We're kind of veterans at the getting imprisoned thing. I know my way around a jail now."
"And you are completely right," he said, and the way he was gazing at her made her feel a bit funny. Bastard. "Doesn't look like there's a way out for us. Not on the surface of things. However…" He raised his eyebrows at her meaningfully, and she picked up his sentence.
"However, they forgot to take one very important thing from us," Rose said.
"What's that?" asked Mickey and Reinette.
The Doctor held out his hand and Rose plucked something from down the front of her shirt. Mickey's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "The key," the Doctor finished gleefully, then kissed it. Rose blushed a bit, wondering if he realised that she had literally been storing that in her bra for the last few minutes. "The lock on that door isn't very fancy. I can use this from this side to open it. Basic fault, that."
Reinette narrowed her eyes, squinting at them in confusion. "How – how did you manage that?"
"Somebody once taught me how to pickpocket a prison guard without them noticing," Rose answered, nodding her head towards the Doctor as he jumped up and walked over to the doors, "He's quite the expert at talking nonsense at a very rapid pace. So when he was chatting to the guard, driving him barmy no doubt, I managed to swipe it."
"Okay, that's…impressive," granted Mickey. "But how the hell are we gonna get past the seventeen guards?"
"Fourteen," Rose corrected. "Plus the seven officers. And we'll distract them."
"How?"
"Dunno yet. Any ideas, Doctor?"
The Doctor peered through the little window in the cell door. "Well, there's only one right out here. And only four are dispersed along the corridor that we'll need to run down to get out; the remaining ten are on the floors above, so we needn't worry about them yet." He turned to face the others. "I have an idea, but you're not going to like it." He was looking directly at Rose.
"I'm not gonna like it?" Rose asked. "Why not?"
He tugged on his ear. "It might be a little bit embarrassing."
"Oh no," she said firmly. "We're not getting naked again."
"Excuse me?" Mickey said loudly.
"Shh," the Doctor chided. "Don't want the guard hearing our plans. Yet. And no, Rose, we won't be getting naked this time."
"This time?" put in Reinette.
"It's a long story involving a three-day stay in a prison on Velakotops. We were desperate," justified Rose. "We had to distract the guards somehow."
"Exactly," continued the Doctor. "And today I propose we use a similar tactic, but to refrain from embarrassing ourselves too much in front of our friends here I suggest we do it with our clothes on this time."
"Do what?" Mickey asked insistently. "What are you going on about? You're not telling me you had sex in order to escape from a prison cell!"
"No!" said the Doctor hurriedly. "Not – not really. Not properly. We just pretended, a little bit, maybe."
"Bloody hell," Mickey grumbled.
"Oh Jesus. You swore to me that we'd never mention that again," muttered Rose. This was not what she needed right now, not so hot on the heels of last night's bullshit. "This is gonna be awkward. You sure you don't want to do this with Reinette instead?"
The Doctor frowned. "No, that's not – no. You're experienced at this particular method of distraction, I need you for this."
"Yeah," she scoffed, "But Reinette - "
"I really would rather not take part in any of what it is you two are discussing. I'd rather sit here quietly until we are freed, to be honest."
"Fine," sighed Rose. She stood up, and gulped. "You're gonna pay for this," she muttered under breath to the Doctor.
He flashed her a cheeky smile. "Oh, I know." He looked at the other two. "Okay, in a moment Rose and I will be making some very strange noises, and then the guard will try to come in to see what's going on – but he won't be able to, because we have his key. So, he'll panic and hurry off to get his friends. He might just bring a couple, might bring all four. We'll quickly unlock the door and you two will stand in the corridor, unfortunately but necessarily in their line of sight. They will be coming from the direction that we all need to go in, so there's no way of getting past them. Therefore, when they arrive, we'll distract them, and you two say that the guards need to sort us out, or some such. Hopefully they'll all be so - "
"Perverted," Rose muttered.
"- curious that they'll all come in and have a look, and then we'll do something which I haven't decided yet to trap them in here whilst we leg it outside. Meanwhile, you two will already be halfway down the corridor, checking for more guards – carefully and quietly, so that they don't see or hear you. Trust me, you really don't want one of them breathing out fire at you."
"No shit," Mickey retorted.
"Then, we'll leg it out of here."
"And the officers outside?" Reinette reminded him.
"Oh, we just run past them," said the Doctor. "The TARDIS is only parked a mile away. Nice quick sprint'll do the trick, then we're safe."
Reinette looked a little nauseous. "Are you sure this plan is going to work?"
"Oh yes; it's foolproof."
Rose groaned.
"That's it, perfect," he said. "Bit louder next time; these walls aren't that thin."
"No, I was groaning because you always say stuff like that, 'oh, it's foolproof, nothing can possibly go wrong,' and end up jinxing it!" snapped Rose.
"Okay, I'm sorry," he replied. "But come on, this isn't gonna work if you're acting angry with me."
"Oh, I dunno," Rose said. "Knowing you, that'd be right up your street."
Silence.
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow, but she could tell she'd struck a bit of a chord because his cheeks were turning slightly pink. Mickey and Reinette studied the floor and the ceiling respectively.
"Anyway," Rose said briskly. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"
"Yes," he murmured. "Yes, let's."
"Told you that you jinxed it," Rose muttered, twenty minutes later. She and the Doctor were tied to a stake together, back to back, just about ready to be executed via burning. "Fantastic plot twist, I must say," she continued sarcastically. "Who'd've thought that your wonderful plan could've possibly gone this wrong."
"At least Reinette and Mickey got away," he said defensively.
"Yeah, but what use are they gonna be?"
"Rose!"
"Look, I'm not being mean, I'm just saying that they don't know where we are or what's happening, so how are they going to get us out of this?"
He felt around behind him and found her hand, entwining their fingers tightly. "It's okay. We'll figure something out."
"Doctor, they've got torches. They are literally about to burn us alive. I'd quite like it if you thought up a plan a bit quicker, please."
"Why am I the one who always has to think up a plan, eh?" he grumbled.
"Excuse me?"
He heaved a sigh. "Sorry."
"Look, if these are our last moments together, I don't want to spend them arguing."
"Me neither," he said softly. "But we'll get out of this, Rose. I'm not about to let you die."
"For fraternising with a known criminal, no less," she said.
"Maybe we should've got naked," he mused.
"What? They would've hated us even more for being so 'inappropriate.' It would've made this worse!"
"No it wouldn't. Think about it. If we are going to die today, then it would have been a much better lead-up if we'd at least got to see each other naked again."
"Doctor."
"Yeah?"
"Are you seriously flirting whilst we are tied to a stake?"
"I'm trying to take my mind off our impending doom."
"Thought you said we weren't going to die."
"Meh. Not so sure about that, now that that big guy is lighting the torches."
"Shit."
"Hmm." He squeezed her hand. "Rose?"
"Yeah?" She tried to crane her neck to look at him, but their position was too awkward.
"I just want you to know something." He cleared his throat. "Um. Bit tricky, this. But it feels like it needs saying."
"What's that?" she asked nervously.
"Well. Well…Well, the thing is. What I…what I said last night."
"Doctor, I don't think this is the right time…"
"No, but Rose. Listen. Um. Me and you – I – thing is - "
"What's the thing?" Rose asked impatiently.
"Well, I was a bit scared, and I said a couple of things that I didn't mean."
"Like?"
He squeezed her hand. "Like…the getting attached thing. I mean, I'm already…you know. Quite, uh. Attached to you. So that was stupid, to say that. As if I could actually deal with it if you left, or if you… Anyway, I didn't want you to think that there haven't been moments where I, um, wanted things to be different, and…"
"Doctor?"
"And…"
"And what?"
"And I'm sorry."
"Right."
"You see, what I was really, actually, meaning to say last night, was that no matter how much I wish - "
The Doctor was cut off by a large commotion amongst the crowd of Khatasans that had gathered to watch their execution.
"What's going on?" Rose asked, hearing the noise but unable to see from her angle.
"I think someone's causing a riot," he murmured back.
"Are Mickey and Reinette there?"
"Nope, can't see them. I think it's – ooh, listen. Sounds like a patrol has found the real culprits. They assumed that we were the ones who kidnapped their missing children."
"What?!"
"Because we're off-worlders, and we started meddling in their business earlier today by digging for info on the mystery. So they thought it was us. But, just in the nick of time, they've found the real criminals." He sighed in relief. "I hope they release us."
"Well, they'll have to, won't they? They can't put us to death now they know we're innocent!"
"Hopefully not…"
At that point, the leader of the Khatasan Officer Corps came forward and addressed the Doctor, "It appears we have wrongfully accused you and your partner. We shall see to it that you are released and that the real wrongdoers discover the meaning of justice."
Rose's tense body relaxed in relief. But she couldn't help but think, "Doctor…does this mean that they are going to burn the criminals alive instead?"
"I…I think so, yes."
"Do you think they deserve it? Or should we stop it?"
"Um…" He didn't really know what to say to that. "Maybe we should have a word with the main guy, see if we can't get him to sentence them to life imprisonment instead, or at least give them a fair trial."
"Yeah, I think I like the sound of that," she replied gratefully, as two of the officers came to untie her and the Doctor from the stake.
They managed to have their conversation with the leader, who promised to consider it, but only if they got the hell away from their planet and never returned; apparently, these people really didn't like them meddling.
So, content that they'd done all they could, the Doctor and Rose legged it back to the TARDIS.