Author Note: Hey guys! Thanks to piceandreamer and angelic-ninja for your reviews - its great to know you like my story and even though this chapter and the next one are a bit slow, and apparently unimportant to the whole storyline, I promise you, they are important and hopefully fun to read, so please don't give up on me yet! Give me a chance to get to the good bit? Thankyou...not that any of you would give up of course, but just incase! lol!

Enjoy! (oh and by the way this is my first Doctor Who fic. I usually do Star Wars ones, so this is all new for me too!)

The TARDIS reappeared some time later in London 2005. Rose had wanted to stop off to dump a few unwanted belongings at her flat before they had travelled back to Raxacoricofallapatorius yet again with Margaret, who was now locked safely in the TARDIS's prison cell.

However, the Doctor wouldn't let Rose out of the ship until he had made sure she was completely fine. After all, Jackie Tyler was sure to notice the huge bruise on her daughter's head, and he knew he'd be the one to get the blame. He could always show Jackie the Slitheen in the cell, but that would probably only fuel her hatred of him even more, accusing him of keeping a monster in the same ship as her precious daughter, who wasn't nearly as fragile as she appeared.

He dabbed at the bruise with a cold flannel, hoping to take the swelling down a bit, and Rose wasn't complaining. It seemed that the cold moisture was easing her throbbing head.

"Why am I always the one who gets hurt," she grumbled as he continued to dab at it.

"Because thats just typical of you humans," he joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. However, it didn't appear to do anything except anger her further, because she elbowed him hard in the side, then went back to sulking.

She was sitting in his chair with her arms folded and her legs resting on the controls in the centre of the room. She was in a terrible mood, which had obviously been made worse by her throbbing head and the fact that her Mum was at home. If her Mum had been out, the Doctor reckoned Rose would have been only too happy to go in, dump her stuff, then leave again.

But because Jackie was at home, it meant another long lecture, probably an even longer rant at her because of the bruise, and the same pleading expression that her mum always showed when she left again. Still, it had been Rose's choice to come back, not his. If he had his own way, he'd never come back to this estate again. But he knew that was just being selfish, and Rose needed her Mum. Just because he no longer had a family, didn't mean he should stop her from seeing hers.

"All done," he said, dropping the flannel onto the seat beside him and standing up. "You ready for an hour of lecturing?" he added with a sly grin, and Rose allowed a little smile to creep onto her face too.

"As I'll ever be," she replied, taking his hand and allowing him to lead her towards the door of the TARDIS.

oOo

Rose popped her head out of the doorway, saw the Chinese takeaway in front of her, the library and youth club over to one side, and realised that the time machine had come back to its favourite spot; it'd landed here before...several times actually.

She stepped out of the spaceship. On the outside it looked like a tall blue box, an old-fashioned police box. From the outside, no one would be able to imagine what was contained inside, because the TARDIS may look big, but only big enough for five or six people if they were prepared to be quite friendly, not big enough to house the enormous control room and all the other bits that formed the inside of the TARDIS. She'd come to accept it - funny how quickly you got used to even the most incredible things - but it was something that made her head hurt if she thought about the hows and whys, and at the moment, that was the last thing she needed.

There to her right was Bucknall House, and there, if she squinted upwards, was number 48. Home. Or was it? She turned back to the blue box. Well no one said you couldn't have more than one home.

Rose still had her key, attached to the same keyring as her TARDIS key, but as the three of them climbed up the concrete steps towards the flat she wondered if she should really use it. Key out of her pocket, look at it, put it back again, take it out again, look at it...it wasn't as if her mum was expecting her.

She hesitated for a moment on the walkway outside the front door, key in her hand. Then she knocked on the door.

After a moment it opened on the chain, which Rose realised was because her mum had probably seen the news with Margaret and wasn't prepared to take any chances. After all, she had encountered a slitheen first hand herself and knew how deadly they could be. But then when Jackie saw who it was, the chain came off immediately, and the door had barely swung open when Jackie had her arms round Rose. "You're here! You're here!"

Rose grinned as she hugged her mum back. "Yeah, looks like it."

Jackie looked at her accusingly as she came out of the embrace. "But don't tell me, you're not stopping."

"Sorry Mum, urgent business on Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"I'm not even gonna ask," Jackie replied raising her eyebrows at the nonsense that had just spilled from her daughter's mouth. After all, it may make sense to Rose, but to Jackie it was just another unpronouncable alien word.

Then she peered over Rose's shoulder. "Come on, where's His Lordship then? Doesn't he want a cup of tea?"

The Doctor appeared in the doorway, grinning. "Just waiting to be asked in."

"He needs to be asked in as much as a fish needs a bycicle!" Rose retorted.

"Hey, fish are very intelligent creatures," the Doctor protested as he and Jack walked into the living room. "I taught one to ride a bycicle once."

Jackie looked as if she believed him for a moment, then saw the stupid grin he was giving her and sighed in exasperation.

"Shall we have that cup of tea then?" Rose asked, steering her Mum towards the kitchen before she could start laying into the Doctor again.

Jack sat down on the sofa beside the Doctor and marvelled at how trivial it all seemed. Here was Rose inviting them to make themselves at home, which the Doctor was more than happy to do, while Rose diverted Jackie to the kitchen, which seemed to be the norm, because he could hear their voices from the kitchen. Jackie was asking Rose why she always ended up making tea whenever the Doctor popped round, and Rose was busy telling her that it was only polite and that she wished she'd stop complaining everytime they did.

Jack looked at the Doctor and saw him flicking thorugh one of the magazines on the coffee table, mumbling about how models these days were nothing like they used to be. Then he picked up a pack of playing cards and fanned them out, shuffled them, and then tried to do some fancy trick with them, which only ended up with him throwing them all over the room.

"You'de better pick those up, mister!" came Jackie's angry voice from the kitchen, and it seemed that the card incident was another of the Doctor's usual antics that he got up to everytime he visited, because Jackie hadn't even seen him throw them everywhere. Perhaps the Tylers and the Doctor had just got into a routine, that played out exactly the same each time they were all together. He suddenly felt all alone in this happy...well perhaps not happy, but at least almost normal family.

Then Rose and Jackie came back in holding two mugs of tea each. Rose handed one to the Doctor and kept the other one for herself whilst Jackie handed one to Jack, eying him suspiciously.

"And who are you?" she asked at last.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness, ma'am. I'm a friend of the Doctor and Rose and I'm travelling with them for a while. You know, make sure they don't get into any mischief," he replied politely.

"Oh, right...well Captain,perhaps you can explain how my daughter got that hideous bruise on her forehead then. You can't be looking after her that well if you let her get that!"

"Leave him alone Mum!" Rose sighed. "It wasn't his fault."

"Then how did you get it?" Jackie demanded. Just then the Doctor got up and wandered out of the room. "Don't mind us!" Jackie called after him. "Make yourself at home!"

"I will, ta," the Doctors voice came back from somewhere in the hall.

Rose rolled her eyes then turned back to Jackie. "Like I said, it weren't his fault. You saw the news right? With the Slitheen Prime Minister?" Jackie nodded. "Well she hit me with a bottle while trying to escape. It was my fault. I wasn't paying attention."

"She did what? An alien attacked my daughter!" Jackie screeched, and Jack jumped, almost spilling the boiling contents of his mug down himself.

"It's not the first time I've been attacked by aliens mum! And it won't be the last either!" Rose responded, slamming her mug down on the coffee table so that the tea lapped over the side and spilled over one of the magazines. Jack, however, was the only one who seemed to notice, because Jackie and Rose were now busy arguing over how dangerous travelling with the Doctor was.

"And besides, we've got Jack now!" Rose finished and Jackie turned to glare at Jack, who made a point of drinking his tea, despite the fact that it was still hot and burned his throat so much it brough a tear to his eye.

Just then the Doctor wandered back in, hands behind his back. He glanced casually at the three faces that had turned to him. Then he turned to Rose. "Rose, you said you wanted to dump some of your unwanted stuff right?"

"Yeah," Rose replied, taken back by his question.

"Well how could you dump something as adorable as this?" he grinned and pulled his hands from his back. He was holding something blue and furry. "I mean he's just begging to be taken along, isn't he."

Rose jumped to her feet and grabbed the furry object. "Mr Tedopoulos! I must have put you in the bag by mistake!" Then she thought for a second, and used the bear to whack the Doctor across the chest. "You went in my Bedroom!"