"Roooose…Roooose…"

"Go away. Sleep." She swatted the Doctor's hand away as he tried to pull back the duvet. Hang on…duvet? "How did I get here? Where is here, anyway?" Rose poked her head out at looked at the room. It was a fancy mahogany-and-thick-carpet affair, definitely not hers. Then she recognised the rug.

"My room. Again. Well, ours, I don't know…anyway, get up!" The Doctor bounced up and down on the bed.

"Go away! OW!" The kink in Rose's back finally straightened out, and she glared over the duvet as the Doctor slowly backed out of the room, hands raised.

-

"Where are my clothes?" The Doctor looked up from the console to see Rose standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that were obviously far too big for her. "I looked all over the place but the only ones I've got smell like I was wearing them for days."

His eyes widened as he remembered that she'd done exactly that. "Um…remember that stuff with the holograms and…stuff? You walked out with a big black bag."

"Crap. Probably at my mum's, then. I guess I should go talk to her anyway."

"Oh, God…okay, we'll go to your mum's, but I'm staying outside. Brightly lit public places and all that." Clearly not relishing the idea of an encounter with Jackie Tyler, the Doctor set a course for Earth.

"Actually," began Rose thoughtfully, "what happened? I mean, I go to my mum's, and I remember sitting outside the front door the next day. I was thinking about you. Then I'm lying in your bed, ruining your carpets."

The TARDIS hummed uncomfortably, and the floor vibrated, echoing the awkward look on the Doctor's face as he searched for an explanation.

"Something happened on Earth." God, he hoped she was falling for this. "You weren't yourself. You got kind of…possessed by something. After I left you, the TARDIS sent me back, stubborn girl, but a week had gone by when I reached you. You're okay now, but I had to get you on board to check you over and I guess in all the panic, we left your clothes behind."

Rose nodded. That worried him. She wouldn't usually accept such pathetic explanations so easily. His Rose should be asking questions, dragging the truth out of him, ignoring him when he said that she wouldn't want to know. Even stranger than the way she kept saying there was something wrong with her.

"Doctor? Hello?" He jumped as he saw a hand waving in front of his face. The ship had stopped moving, and Rose was pulling him towards the door. He tried his best to stop her, protesting at how he'd get the mother of all slaps if he went in there with what they had to say.

"You're coming, and that's final," Rose insisted, dragging him out of the TARDIS. "I'm about to tell my mum I'm shacking up with a nine hundred year old alien. Hiding isn't going to help you, she'll only come and kick the door down."

"I told you before, the assembled hordes…"

"…couldn't stop my mum. I couldn't stop my mum, not if I went in there and swallowed an entire vortex again. If she's gonna slap you, she'll slap you." Rose threw him her sweetest smile.

With a sigh, the Doctor had to admit she was right.