Rose

This Is Worse Than The Blitz!

As it went, they didn't find a simple mobile in the vast communications section. And that lead them to the actual supermarket bit. When the Doctor had told them 'supermarket', Rose assumed a big building with aisles and freezers and irritating self check-outs was what he was talking about, but it was literally a market, with vendors and stalls. Going row upon row, and column upon column. Because they were all floating. You needed a Whooshform to navigate, only these ones were a different type. The Whooshform Mark 3 (Rose didn't know what the Mark 2 was), and it required steering.

"Do you think you need a licence?" Clara asked Rose. Rose frowned.

"I don't know," she said. They stood away in the shadows and observed as people expertly navigated the Whooshforms around, but they weren't a communal thing like lifts. You got one for yourself and whoever else, but the queues were huge. "Let's just bring out the old psychic paper again."

Five minutes later they were spinning 360° around on the thing, it went upside down so quickly Rose barely had a chance to register what was happening, get her head level, and they they spun again. She'd given up trying not to scream with fright. So had Clara.

"Is there an autopilot on this thing?!" Clara yelled, but Rose was too busy clinging for her life to answer. It was then that they heard the unmistakable sound of a sonic device. They stopped spinning, and they both toppled out, because it had stopped upside down. Rose dared look down. The distance was almost twice that of hanging from a zeppelin, and her hands were slipping from the bars already.

"Uh-oh... Er, hang on," said a voice coming out of some speakers somewhere. Rose would recognise the American accent of Jack Harkness any day.

"HURRY UP A BIT, WILL YOU?!" Rose screamed at him.

"Easy, I'm not the one with the sonic, Husbandy is," Jack said. Rose had no time to make a quip, she settled for a told you so grin at Clara, who was bright red, but whether that was from embarrassment or effort Rose didn't know. She heard Eleven's voice and some scrapes, apparently there was a scuffle over Jack's vortex manipulator.

"STOP FIGHTING!" Clara yelled. Rose glanced around. Everyone was staring at them. She supposed this wasn't the usual thing that happened when 'maintenance' took control of a Whooshform. Some kids were pointing and laughing.

"Just... performance artists!" Rose made up a story.

"Get outta the damn road, ya hippies," somebody shouted back at them.

"Oi! We're not hippies!" Clara shouted back. Ten's voice came over the manipulator.

"Sorry about that scuffle," he said, "now, you're gonna fall in a minute. Hold tight."

"FALL?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE GONNA -" But Rose couldn't talk and scream at the same time as they began to plummet. Then they stopped.

"Sorry! Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

"Oh, yeah! We're both fine! Just hanging around!" she punned angrily, kicking her feet as though somehow this would help.

"I was just taking control. The other Doctor's a little tied up right now," Ten said. Rose heard a row flaring in the background noise of the transmission, which she presumed was om-comm, unless they were up to no good in a control room somewhere. They started moving then, going up a few 'floors' of stalls until they ended up at some vending machines that had a platform in front of them. Ten was standing there with the vortex manipulator in one hand, his screwdriver in the other.

"Jump off," he said when they were hovering above the air pontoon. They did, and Ten flipped the Whooshform back over so it was the right way and docked it. Eleven and Jack were fighting about something. Clara went to stop them.

"So what've you been up to?" Rose asked Ten.

"Trying to get Husbandy over there out of the toy section," Ten said. "That's about it. You?" Rose explained about drunked Jenny - now locked in the TARDIS, the creepy security guy, the tasteless fish, the Ponds and their police pursuit, her presents for Jackie, Clara's conflict about her solot ring (she would not have told him this if Clara were paying the slightest bit of attention, but Eleven and Jack were still acting up), her prank ideas that Clara had shot down and finally she caught him up to speed with their recent mishap on the Whooshform Mark 2.

"Just the usual then?" he asked, grinning crookedly. Rose grinned back.

"Yep." Clara's shouting reached them. It might have been to do with Jenny, Rose wasn't really listening. It was all just noise. It didn't stop her yelling at them to shut up though. They did, which was a relief. But then Eleven went to take his wife's hand and Clara moved it away. It looked accidental, but Rose knew better. There was a wedge between the usually too lovey-dovey couple, and Rose felt a sense of responsibility for them. She'd have words later, maybe with the other half.

"Where to next?" he said.

"Anywhere we don't have to use those stupid things," said Rose, glaring at the Whooshform Mark 2. It was quickly becoming one of her pet hates.

"Well... Er..." Ten glanced around. They were stranded on the pontoon. "I know how to fly them..?" he said. She sighed.

"Alright, fine. Let's just stay here for a bit," she said. They all fit easily onto the Whooshform, which was thankfully quite large, and Ten gave a running commentary as they flew, Clara on the opposite side to Eleven, who seemed to be permanently confused.

"I saw someone selling Krilotane oil earlier. Imagine that! I asked where they got it, but they didn't seem happy I knew what it was. It was labelled 'clever juice'," he said. "Looked pretty shady. Saw some Slitheen - god knows what they were trying to sell, I didn't stop to ask. Definitely saw some poor scrap dealer selling dalekanium. Told him to get rid of it, course. Can't have people running round with that sort of metal. There was a stall down here selling some good things though." They stopped outside a bright yellow stall. Rose couldn't tell if the paint on it was yellow, or if it was just the bananas that covered every inch of it.

"Bananas? Isn't there some more exotic fruit?" Rose asked.

"Rose Tyler, I'll have you know Bananas have been votes best fruit in the universe for the past 20 years."

"Why?" asked Rose. She wasn't too fond of bananas. They weren't her favourite fruit. But she darden't tell the Doctor that, he might cry.

"I love bananas! Bananas are good," he said with a toothy smile, but all Rose glimpsed for a brief moment was his younger self saying the exact same thing to her during World War Two when they'd been corned by Chula zombies. He didn't notice his quoting had made her uneasy, and merely started buying the yellow fruits.