Games Part One

Notes: Well, I felt I needed another project to work on so here it is. I know some of you have been crying out for a Stella sequel and I have to tell you now that this isn't it. Stella needs a bit of a rest I think before I decide what to do with her next. But she will be back! If she hasn't run off in a sulk because I wouldn't let her and Jack get together…;) Anyway, this is something that I thought was going to be quite light but I doubt if it's going to be light in the middle. Rose and Jack are playing games but something else is playing with them. Just who's going to win?

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"I bet you don't even know how to pull a prank!"

The Doctor sighed and tried to put his head even further into the open panel he was supposed to be tinkering with. In reality it was just to get away from the senseless discussion Rose and Jack had taken up.

"I do to! When I was at school no teacher was safe from me and my gang!" said Rose impressively.

"Oooh, a little girly gang, save me!" mocked Jack, grinning at her. She scowled.

"It's true! Vaseline on the board pens, pins on their seats—"

"Amateur," said Jack. The Doctor groaned.

"Is that a challenge?" asked Rose in a dangerously soft voice.

"Might be." Jack fixed her gaze.

"Then I hope you know no corner of this ship is safe for you, Captain Jack," said Rose, smiling in the special sarcastic way she reserved for such moments.

"Ditto," replied Jack dryly. They both flounced away.

The Doctor sighed. This meant no corner of the ship would be safe for him either. He resolved to stay as far away from the pair of them as possible.

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It started slowly.

Rose took to hiding behind doors waiting for Jack, trying to make him scream when she eventually jumped out. And scream he did. Rose found this particularly funny on the occasion he was wearing only a towel, which of course he dropped.

Jack countered these frequent attacks by putting salt in the sugar pot. Rose had always loved sweet tea, and she got a very nasty shock when she tried drinking it.

The problem was, sometimes Rose got the wrong person. And the Doctor was also a fan of sweet tea.

Then began 'the kitchen massacre', as the Doctor nicknamed it afterwards. This was a dangerous period when he had to check food very carefully before he ate it. Jack put a rubber spider in the honey, Rose put a toy mouse in the coffee. There was also the case of the fake flies in the ice cubes, but that remained a mystery because no one would admit to it.

The pranks got steadily more ambitious. There was a very embarrassing moment when the Doctor had to tell Rose the back of her jeans had holes cut into it, exposing her very pink underwear. Jack turned up to breakfast the next day covered in porridge.

He lost his temper when he found an eyeball staring back at him from the bottom of his tea.

"Rose! Jack!" he bellowed. They both looked up from their breakfast, looking innocent.

"Wha—oh." Rose went pink. "I thought that was Jack's."

"For God's sake, when is this going to end!" yelled the Doctor, tipping his tea down the sink. The plastic eyeball swirled around, staring at him from the plug. He threw it in the bin.

"Hey, don't blame me, that was Rose!" said Jack, biting into his toast only to spit it out again. "Pepper Rose!" Rose gave him a smug smile.

"You're too easy Jack," she said.

"This has to stop!" said the Doctor. "The other day I got covered in Marmite!"

"Oooh, that must have taken ages to wash out. Think what it would have done to my hair!" said Rose, aghast.

"If you two don't stop this nonsense, I'm throwing you both out," said the poor Doctor. "Now I want to eat my breakfast without finding worms in the cereal or exploding sausages, that OK?"

They both nodded at him.

"Guess I won then," said Jack triumphantly. "I pulled one more than you."

"No you didn't, I pulled way more! The Marmite thing doesn't count! It got the Doctor, not me! Besides—"

The Doctor interrupted them by crashing loudly to the floor. He held up a chair leg. "OK. Who loosened this?"

Rose and Jack looked at each other and burst into hysterical laughter. The Doctor scowled at them.

"I'm glad you two think it's so funny," he said. "Is that the last of them?"

"Not exact—" Rose bit her lip as he opened the door, only to be coated lightly in baked beans. He gave them both a fiery stare and left.

"Let's call a truce," said Jack quietly.

"Good idea," said Rose.

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Rose lay contentedly on her bed, listening to the mp3 the Doctor had bought her. He'd hooked up the computer in her room so she could download unlimited tracks from whichever period she chose. She loved just lying there listening to the Spice Girls and Coldplay and a band from the future called One Purpose Per Soul. The music washed over her in the perfect quality only the TARDIS systems could provide. She was beginning to feel like she was really there listening to them perform.

She felt at home on the TARDIS now. The Doctor had allowed her to paint and accessorize her room however she wished, so she sat in pretty much the same pinkness she'd had back on Earth. The TARDIS was the perfect home really because she was completely safe there. No one could break in (!), there was a sprinkler system in case of fire, and she was living with people she knew would protect her at all costs. The worst thing that could happen was Jack's pranks.

She turned up the track she was listening to. Robbie Williams…her mum had loved him, and Rose had grown up listening to his albums. That and Spandau Ballet. Her mum had odd taste.

Out of a million seeds
Only the strongest one breathes
You made a miracle mother
I'll make a man out of me

Rose smiled and imagined her mum dancing to the same track as she made herself a cup of tea. Robbie always made her think of home.

She shivered suddenly. Was it her, or had the room got suddenly colder? She inspected her fingernails, which had been pink and warm a minute ago. Now they were turning blue. Her breath began to cloud in front of her. She turned off the mp3, wishing she had a thermometer. Surely it had dropped at least ten degrees? She grabbed a thick sweater on the end of her bed but found it didn't help as much as it should have. The room just kept getting colder.

She shoved on a coat over the top and made her way to the door. The most likely explanation was that the Doctor had managed to break the heating system while trying to fix something else. She tugged on the handle.

To her horror, the door was stuck. Ice was forming around it right before her eyes. She tugged frantically but it was frozen solid.

She was shivering again. She rummaged in her wardrobe and flung on her dressing gown over the top, then started banging on the door.

"Jack! Jack, is that you? What have you done to my room?" she hollered, trying desperately to yank it open. "Jack, this isn't funny! Open my door! Jack! Jack!"

"Rose?" The Doctor's puzzled voice came through the door.

"Doctor, let me out! The whole r-room's frozen!" yelled Rose, her teeth chattering.

"Frozen?" He sounded concerned. "Wait a sec."

She heard the sonic screwdriver purring into life and imagined him passing it over the door frame, a cute little frown on his face as he concentrated. Water trickled from the frame as the ice melted obediently and he opened the door for her in a gentlemanly way.

"There you are," he said, laughing at her attire. "You can take some of those clothes off now."

"What happened? Did you manage to destroy the heating?" asked Rose as she removed the dressing gown and coat, swapping the thick sweater for a lighter one.

"Would I do that?" joked the Doctor. "No, I don't know what happened. If the heating was broken the rest of the TARDIS would be frozen up too."

"Yeah, I guess," said Rose, shutting her door as she followed him down the corridor, guessing they were going to the control room. "I thought it was Jack."

"If it was, I'll skewer him. Messing with my ship." Rose laughed.

"I'll do it myself. Freaked me out, that did," she said.

"I'll bet." He took one of her hands, trying to rub it warm. Rose smiled at him in a way he found completely enchanting. On impulse, he brought her hand to his lips.

Then every light in the TARDIS went out.

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Well, I hope you guys liked that! See y'all on the flip side, k? Also, be watching out for more opportunities to win the coveted Chubby Chub Chub Chub Award. There was one in this very chapter if you can find it. You review now.