O hai! It's not a Saturday and I'm writing. …This feels weird.

Disclaimer: I don't think I really have to put this here, but force of habit and all that, so… uhh… yeah. Still don't own anything.

SIAPNIAN: It is far too hot here. –grumbles- I wasn't built for this…

Actually Very Important Announcement Indeed (AVIAI): So I woke up yesterday, checked the deadlines on my classes just to make sure I was still all nice and not-running-out-of-time-y, and I realised that I did not have a month left on my Latin course, as I had thought. I had exactly a week.Which means that, unfortunately, fanfic must take a backseat for not failing the course I'm actually doing the best in right now, so… Basically, the new update schedule isn't going as seamlessly as I had hoped. I am sorry about that. :(

-BAD WOLF-

"So," the Doctor said as he circled around the console, fiddling with controls that may or may not have been there just to look impressive, "where do you want to go? What do you want to do? When do you want to be?"

Rose, legs tucked neatly under her as she sat in the jumpseat, watched him with an air of affectionate amusement. "You're the one who knows his way around this universe," she informed him. "You pick. Besides, I did it last time."

He pouted a bit. "But we get into more danger whenever you do it," he said.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Mostly?"

She giggled a bit, shaking her head at him. "Even if I did pick," she said, "you wouldn't fly her there, and we'd end up a couple of star systems and a thousand years off."

"Oi!" He pointed accusingly at her. "When you take into account the infinity of time and space—"

"You're still off," she interrupted him, grinning. "I can fly her better than you." She thought that she had, once, but she couldn't quite pin the memory down. It gave her a headache, so she stopped trying.

He looked almost comically sceptical. "Prove it."

Rose bit her lip a bit and studied her loosely-clasped hands. She should have known he'd say that. "I don't know all the controls yet," she admitted. "On this one, anyway. I was just…" To tell the truth, she hadn't known all the controls on the other one either, but he didn't need to know that.

"We'll have to change that, then," he replied. His voice was deceptively flippant, and she narrowed her eyes at him to find that he was very carefully not looking at her.

She wasn't sure how to respond, so she didn't. Silence descended for a few moments.

The Doctor, never having been one comfortable with silence, broke it as soon as possible. "Which means," he said, "we seem to be left with no choice but to let the TARDIS decide herself."

She stared at him. "Oh no."

He looked slightly hurt. "Why not?"

Rose stammered for a few seconds. "She… She has this habit of taking us—well, the other TARDIS did, anyway—"

He watched her, face carefully expressionless after the mention of her previous travels. It made her nervous.

"Basically, every time we did that, we nearly got killed."

"And the odds for non-life-threatening situations are better when you pick?" he inquired doubtfully.

"A little, yeah."

"That may have been the case," he replied, "with the parallel TARDIS, but what makes you think this one won't be a bit more sensible in her choice of destination?"

"I dunno," she said. "Maybe the fact that their pilots are almost indistinguishable?" She grinned at him, tongue poking out from between her teeth a bit.

He ignored her. "Besides," he said instead, "I thought you liked danger." He bounced over to her. "Come on, Rose. Where's your sense of adventure? Eh?"

She bit her lip and raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't react.

She knew better than to get in a staredown with him again, so she relented. "Fine," she said. "But if there are Slitheen or something outside when we land, I'm blaming you."

He rolled his eyes as he returned to his original place beside the console. "There won't be Slitheen," he said. "That's just ridiculous."

Which meant that there would be. Fantastic.

Before she had a chance to comment on that, though, he'd thrown the final lever—she recognised that one, at least—and sent them spinning wildly through the Vortex. Rose, at least, had the sense to hold onto the seat; the Doctor hadn't taken such precautions, and tumbled to the floor. She worried for a moment that he was hurt—this flight was a bit rougher than normal—until she heard his laugh over the ship's grating roar.

Despite her best efforts, the landing was hard enough to jerk her off the seat. She managed to keep herself from any serious injury, but her dignity was regretfully lost.

She looked at the ceiling for a moment. Was it just her, or were the lights a bit dimmer? Was the TARDIS okay?

A brown shape scrambled to his feet at the edge of her vision and ran over, coming to a stop by her side and holding out a hand. She took it and he helped her pull herself upright.

"You okay?" he asked her, tense with a kind of nervously happy energy. It was infectious, and she found herself forgetting about the ship's welfare and grinning back.

"Yeah," she said.

"Good!" he proclaimed, and dashed over to the doors, seemingly unaware of the fact that he was still holding her hand and dragging her along with him. She laughed, slightly breathlessly, as he opened the door and they walked out.

Rose glanced around. There weren't any Slitheen, she was surprised to note. Come to think of it, there weren't any people at all. "Where are we?"

"I dunno," he said happily. "Earth colony, it looks like. Maybe… fiftieth century? Fifty-first?"

"Jack's time, then," she commented.

He gave her an odd look. "Jack?"

She didn't have time to explain. With a horrifyingly familiar shriek, a Reaper materialised in the sky above them.

-BAD WOLF-

I love Reapers, don't you?

And I really wish we were at the finale already. Did you know I completely outlined the Christmas episode a couple of days ago? 'Cause I did. …I'm kind of proud of it, actually, which is baffling.

Anyway. Here I am, here is fic, here is apology… I'll do better next episode. …I hope.

Hope you're all well and not dead of heatstroke or something. :)