Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who, never have done, never will do cries
Rose swore the sound of the slap her mother had just given the Doctor was echoing throughout the Powell Estate. She bit her lip to stifle a giggle as he shot her a pained look, cupping his injured cheek with his hand. She took a step to him and removed his hand from his face, pressing a kiss to the red skin.
"And how long has this been going on?" demanded Jackie, hands on hips and rolling her eyes at Rose's affectionate gesture. Rose's plan to get the 'Mum, the Doctor and I are sleeping together' out of the way as quickly as possible had resulted in the slap being the last of the Doctor's worries and at present he was carefully eyeing the bread knife laying on the kitchen table, still within Jackie's reach.
"We haven't been… together long," said Rose taking the Doctor's hand, "Please Mum, try to understand. I'm happy."
"But he's an alien," cried Jackie, "A thing."
"He's still in the room," said the Doctor, quickly ducking behind Rose as Jackie shot him a vicious glare and raised her hand again. Rose drew herself up to her full height and tried to look brave, despite the fact that her mother in a temper still terrified her after months of monsters and aliens.
"Mum listen, we wanted you to know about us so please try to accept it. We've been through so much recently that we just want to come home and keep quiet for a few days."
"Why? What's happened? Where's he taken you this time? First Mickey and now…I swear to you Rose if he's upset you."
"Don't blame the Doctor," said Rose flopping down on the sofa with an exasperated sigh, "We landed somewhere by mistake and had a bit of a hairy time. It wasn't the Doctor's fault, or the TARDIS' fault, or my fault but we got involved anyway. It scared us and we just want a bit of down time."
"I wasn't scared," said the Doctor, defensively, as he pottered nervously by the television set, clicking the sonic screwdriver on and off in his hand. It was a nervous habit Rose had noticed in this incarnation, it spoke volumes of the Doctor's emotions even when he thought he was doing a good job of hiding them, "Never get scared me."
"Well I suppose you'll be expecting me to feed you then," sighed Jackie, "You could have given me some warning you know. I've got nothing in and I was meant to be going to Howard's tonight."
"Satsuma man!" said the Doctor, "Thank him for the jim jams would you. Without him I would have had to save the world naked, although I have done that before actually, Tilif Prime, lovely race but had this thing about clothes, hated them. Even when I was offering to save them from the great devouring beast of…"
"Doctor!" said Rose tugging at his coat tails.
"What?"
"Babbling," she said, earning herself one of his amusing pouty faces he pulled when he felt like he wasn't getting his way. He huffed down on the sofa beside her, looking set for a good sulk but changed his mind at the last minute and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
"Do you have to do that here?" cried Jackie, "Rose if you want to eat tonight you'll have to help me with the shopping. He can stay here."
"He has a name," said the Doctor childishly.
"No, he has a title!" Jackie shot back, smiling as she watched the look of shock and affront that crossed the Doctor's face at her quick witted response, "Rose?"
"Yeah I'll come," she said, stifling a giggle at her partner's face. Another word that fitted them perfectly, partner, although they had been partners in many ways before they were lovers but it still warmed Rose's heart a degree, "Why don't you go fiddle with the TARDIS? I'll find you when we're done."
The Doctor nodded and pressed a brief kiss to her lips before heading out the door. Leaving mother and daughter to compile a shopping list.
XXXX
The Doctor tinkered miserably with the alien gadget in his hand, ignoring the incessant prattle of the television personalities he was being forced to watch. Rose's pleading, begging, pouting and finally wicked womanly wiles had landed him in agreeing to spend the night in the Tyler flat rather than on the TARDIS. At first Jackie had insisted on the Doctor sleeping on the sofa but Rose had won her over but that still didn't earn the Doctor a reprieve from the latest reality TV show that Jackie had got hooked on. After attempting to entertain himself by pointing out to Jackie who out of the celebrities was in fact alien, he had now reluctantly turned to retuning the frequencies on a radio system that would allow him to communicate with the great Sea Turtle Empire on the planet of Huhuganog. The fact that the planet had been destroyed by a supernova of a nearby star nearly two thousand years previously still didn't phase his fiddling.
The Doctor fidgeted on the sofa, rewarded by a tut from Jackie as he disturbed her viewing. He mouthed a overly dramatic 'sorry' at the back of her head and went back to his fiddling. Rose had excused herself to change into her nightwear but forty-five minutes later she still hadn't returned.
"How long does it take?" he muttered more to himself than anyone.
"What are you fretting about?" asked Jackie, muting the volume on the telly. It was only when silence descended in the room that they heard strange moaning coming from the bathroom.
"Tell me I'm hearing things," said the Doctor before springing to his feet and bolting to the bathroom door. It was locked, "Rose? Rose? Are you alright?"
He heard her strangled sobs behind the door, "He is awake."
"Rose?"
"He is awake and you will worship him."
"Rose stop playing, that isn't funny," said the Doctor, fumbling in his pocket for the sonic screwdriver, "I'm coming in okay."
"The Beast has risen from the pit."
The bathroom door clicked open and the Doctor rushed inside to see Rose banging her head against the bath tub, her half dressed body covered in strange black markings, not unlike the ones on the wall on Sanctuary Base 6. He paled and took a step back, remembering what Rose had told him about Toby. He thought they had destroyed whatever the Beast had been but somehow it had taken over Rose's body and was now doing to her what it had done to him.
"He is awake!" cried Rose, her voice weak and her breathing ragged.
"Rose? Its me, it's the Doctor, you're going to be alright," he said taking a few tentative steps towards her and kneeling beside her. She pulled away, huddling closer to the bath, curling her arms around her knees.
"Get away from me! You're not the Doctor, he's dead, the Doctor's dead."
Jackie entered the room at her daughter's scream and joined the Doctor on the floor, "Rose what's the matter? This is the Doctor," she said as soothingly as possible, "What's the matter with her?"
"I don't know," said the Doctor but his eyes were drawn to something gripped tightly in Rose's hand. He gently pried her fingers apart to release the black kohl pencil that she had been gripping. The point was worn down to nearly nothing. He glanced over her body, at the thick black symbols, so similar to the one's they had recently seen but not the same. He licked the end of his thumb and rubbed at one of the designs, it came away easily. His sigh of relief was only short lived as Rose flinched away from him again.
"Jackie," he said slowly, "I think we might have a problem."
