Jackie waited patiently on her sofa. She'd heard the Tardis, she just didn't want to go running out every time it appeared. She thought it made her sound rather like a puppy when it's owner got home. Well, that and Rose had once said that if she kept doing that, the Doctor would make Rose move into the Tardis.
Jackie didn't want that, so she had agreed to her daughter's request.
After a half-hour of listening to them screaming and laughing in the yard; she was trying to decide whether or not to go ask if they were coming in, when the doorbell rang.
"I'm coming!" It rang again. "I said I was coming!!" And again and again and again. She threw open the door to ask if the person was deaf, to find Rose and the Doctor standing there talking.
And the Doctor was holding down the doorbell.
When he looked up, the Doctor thought he could see a vein popping out in her forehead. Jackie was not happy.
"What's wrong with you?!" she screamed at him and smacked the hand holding down the doorbell.
"Yeow!" He rubbed the offended hand and the red mark that was showing up. "Did you really need to break out the Jackie-Slap?" He ducked as another one came at his head.
Rose decided that it wasn't a good idea to let her mother clobber the Doctor. So, to keep them from killing eachother, she bravely put one arm around her mother in a hug and used the other to shove the Doctor inside. "Break it up you two." the younger Tyler scolded.
"She started it." the man pointed a finger at her accusingly.
"I bloody well did not!!"
Rose was having a hard time remembering why it had been a good idea to come home.
=-=-=
After Rose had closed the door, it was pretty quiet.
SLAP.
...or had been, for about thirty-two seconds. Then the door opened and Rose walked out and leaned on the railing outside her front door. She loved her mum, but sometimes she just had to escape. Yes, the Doctor was still in there, but only because he had to explain to Jackie why they had shown up a week later than promised.
Rose took a deep breath. It was still relatively early, so the air still had that morning crispness to it. She'd always liked that. Morning air had to be one of her most favorite smells. It smelled all fresh and new. Like a new pair of PJs fresh and warm from the dryer.
Something caught her eye and pulled her from her thoughts.
It took a second, but she spotted it. A neighbor was peeking out their front door. Rose then noticed the numbers above the door. That was Miss Anita's flat. But why on earth was she acting all covert? Was she trying to avoid someone?
The door closed suddenly but had reopened just as quick as the lady stepped outside and zipped up her sky-blue hoodie.
"Oi! Miss Anita!" Rose called out and waved. The shout causing the woman to jump.
Miss Anita looked around nervously before spotting Rose and putting a hand on her chest. She hurried with locking her door and jogged down the stairs to begin her routine morning jog.
"OI!" Rose shouted a bit louder to her.
The woman looked up. "Oh! Rose!" she said, relieved. "I didn't see you there!"
Rose knew that was a lie, but ignored it. "Where you off to at..." she glanced down and realised that she hadn't reset it when she had come home. It read 6pm. Obviously incorrect. "...darnit. My watch stopped." she fibbed. "What time do you have?"
"Uhh... about... Sheesh! 7:30!" Anita exclaimed.
"Wow. 7:30? What are you still doing here? Your usually gone by 6!"
"Yeah, I know. It's just that I- ...ACK!!" She paused as she felt her cell go off in her pocket. "Hang on okay?"
"Sure." Rose casually leaned on the railing and looked down as her neighbor fished out her mobile and answered it.
"Hello?" she asked, not having bothered to check the number first.
Rose watched as Anita suddenly got miffed.
"Bloody hell!! You trying to give me an aneurism?!" the woman griped. Rose watched her expression change to one of shock, then exasperation.
Miss Anita glanced at her watch again and made a face. "Well, it's not my fault!! Rose is back with her guy-friend and they were yelling and screaming just outside my door!"
'Ah.' Thought Rose. 'So that's why she was being all 'Secret Agent' earlier.'
"Just about ten minutes ago they went inside,..." she continued. "So... they started about a half-hour ago."
Had they really been yelling for that long?
"Not. My. Fault!" She was smiling now, but still looked slightly miffed at the person on the other end. "That bloody alarm clock of mine didn't go off again!"
Was that all? Rose wondered if that excuse would work on her mum... or the Doctor.
She looked back down as her friend huffed in frustration. "Alright! I get it. My life sucks and you think that's funny as hell!!" A pause. "Ugh. Fine then, Mr. Giggles, I'm leaving right now." she paused, then hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" Rose asked. "Sounds like you don't get along." She was trying very hard not to grin.
"Actually, we're good friends, but he can just.... ooh!! Sometimes I can't stand him!!" Anita stomped her foot for emphasis.
"I know someone like that..." she said with a glance to her front door.
"Oh well, I better go. Nice to see you again, Rose!" she waved and turned to go.
"Wait!" Rose stopped her. Before you go, I've been wondering something for quite some time..."
"What's that?"
"Your hair. How did you get it to be like that?" Rose had always wondered about that. Her friend had straight blonde, shoulder length hair, but it had vertical stripes of brunette in it. And the ends of her hair were a bit blue. It was pretty.
Anita looked bewildered for a second and touched her hair. "Y'know... I'm not sure. It just grows that way. Strange really, but, your the first person to ask me that in quite some time." The woman turned to leave but again, she turned back. "Oh... the blue tips... I did that." she said with a smile, then turned... nearly bumping into the Tardis in her hurry to leave.
Rose watched her go. "Who's hair grows like that?" she muttered to herself just as her friend turned the corner and out of sight.
The front door suddenly flew open and out dashed the Doctor like all of hell was behind him.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!" he shouted to the house. Jackie Tyler ran out after him.
Well, not hell exactly, but to the Doctor, it was pretty close. "Come back!! I only asked him to set the table!!"
And Rose was hot on their heels. "Mum! Let the Doctor alone!!"
The Doctor was inside the Tardis a few seconds later, most likely breaking all recorded land speed records in the process.
=-=-=
The Doctor had made it safely to the Tardis. He was so proud of himself. He wasn't quite sure what had triggered the slightly unstable, in his oppinion, mother of his companion to snap at him like that. Hadn't he told her several times that he 'didn't do domestic'?
He shook his head and sighed. Rose was outside theTardis trying to explain to her why you didn't ask Time Lords to set tables. From the sounds he was hearing, it wasn't going too well.
An hour and a half later it had finally gotten quiet. Rose had called to him and said something like "I'm taking mum inside now. Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone." but he'd been too busy trying to get his ears to stop ringing from that last smack, so he didn't quite register what she'd said.
POP!
The Doctor shook his head and worked his jaw a few times. Having gotten his ears to pop, finally ending the annoying ringing, he was now able to hear correctly.
Good thing too, or he'd have missed the light knocking on the Tardis door. Had Jackie returned to appologise? Or was Rose fed up and ready to leave?
He opened the door, fully expecting to see a Tyler, however there is no one in sight.
Just a box.
And it's addressed to him.
=-=-=
"I'm back, Doctor!" Rose said when she walked into the Tardis a few hours later, lugging a huge sack of clean clothes. A sack she left by the door when she noticed that the Doctor was acting a bit odd. "Uh, Doctor?" She carefully approached him.
He was sitting in The Chair, as Rose called it, with his back to her. "Hi Rose!" he said with a wave, but he didn't look up.
"...Doctor?"
"I got a package." he announced proudly, still not moving from his spot. As Rose got closer, trying her very hardest to avoid making a rude comment regarding what he'd said, she saw that he was staring intently at a small cardboard box about 1 foor square.
"When did'ja get it?" she asked while motioning for him to move over some. "Scooch."
He did scoot over. Now that he was so skinny, he and Rose, although a bit close, could both fit comfortably in the pilot's chair. "It showed up outside the door a minute or two after you left, I think."
"Oh. Well why haven't you opened it yet?"
He slowly turned his head to look at her. "It was delivered to the Tardis and addressed to me."
Rose blinked. "...oh. Right."
A second later the meaning of his words became clear. "It was addressed... to you?"
"Mmm-hmm." He leaned back and casually put his hands behind his head, stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles.
They sat there in silence for a moment until Rose got up and walked over to the box. She squatted down and looked at the top.
In beautifully scrawled letters it said:
To: The Doctor
Tardis
C/O Powell Estate
London, England
Rose looked a bit bewildered. Except for the fact that it was addressed to come directly to the Tardis, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She glanced over to see the Doctor was now looking at her instead of the box. "It's addressed here."
"Yes it is, Rose." he was acting smug and all-knowing again. He'd been trying for almost a year now to train her to be a good, proper companion.
She looked at it again and noticed something else. "No return address."
He nodded. She was catching on. "And no postmark either."
Rose looked and, sure enough, there was just a stamp. "How weird."
"And incorrect postage to boot." he smiled.
"It didn't go through the post then." When he shook his head she smiled too. "Good thing too. The postman'd have a fit trying to figure out where the Tardis family lives."
They both laughed at the thought of the poor postman.
When the laughter died down, something occured to her. "Someone knows about the Tardis."
"...bingo." He abruptly popped up from his seat and joined Rose in squatting next to the package. "And the funny thing is..." he pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver and scanned the brown cardboard. "...I can't find any trace of who sent it. Infact, besides me, there aren't any fingerprints on it anywhere."
"Nowhere?"
"Not even under the tape."
"Open it up. Maybe they left a note." she suggested.
The Doctor didn't see any reason not to, so he carefully opened the box. "Packing peanuts... tissue paper... someone went all-out..." he muttered to himself. "AHA!!" The Doctor then pulled out an object in a bubblewrap sleeve from all the packing material.
"A book?"
"Not just any book, Rose. This is the book I left in Alexandria." He was almost at a whisper as he pulled it out of the sleeve. "I thought it had been destroyed in the fire... but I guess not."
Rose watched as he carefully looked it over, then opened the cover. She could see writing, but she wasn't close enough to read it. "What's that?" she asked him.
"Your note." he turned it to let her see.
Doctor
Here's your book back. Please try to clean up after yourself next time.
~Doxia
Rose wasn't sure what to think. "You know anyone named Doxia?"
"Nope." he half-lied. And truthfully, he didn't. But, for some reason, it seemed familliar to him. He shook his head. "Never heard it before."
He was about to say something else, when Jackie started pounding on the door again and shouting words that would make a sailor blush. Apparently, She'd found something in Rose's box of souveniers that she didn't like one bit.
"Time to go!" he announced and absent-mindedly put the book in his coat pocket.
"Where to?" Rose asked while tidying up the packaging mess. She tossed it into a door and hoped the ship had switched the rooms around so it ended up in a trashcan instead of the wardrobe room or something.
"Dunno! Anywhere but here!" the Time Lord replied while seemingly trying to be in three places at once.
A terrible thought pushed it's way into the young lady's mind. "What about my mum?!"
The Doctor paused for a moment and pondered this. "Right." He ran over to the red phone and whacked something. "JACKIE TYLER!! PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE POLICE BOX!!" he shouted into the speaker and grinned when he saw her eyes bug out over the monitor as she backed up. "Haha!!! That'll teach ya!!" and he resumed his piloting.
"Whatever works..." Rose giggled to herself.
The Doctor pulled a lever and they were off.