The Doctor and Rose stood in front of their burning home, looking transfixed at the flames. They found it amazing what damage an exploding toaster and microwave could do without hurting anyone in the process. The Doctor had been checking the toaster for further alien influences when he heard a ticking noise and dived into the living room, trying to evade the full impact of the explosion. He singed his ass a little bit while he jumped but survived otherwise without injuries. After running comically around, yowling and holding his burning behind, he called the fire brigade, grabbed Chuck and Rose (literally... he threw the surprised woman over his shoulder) and dashed out of their apartment. Chuck whined all the way after his beloved gum tree but became silent when the Doctor promised to buy him two orchids instead... the little palm tree fancied beautiful flowers...
While the Doctor ran through the building, the dangling Rose was quick-thinking enough to set off the fire alarm (however she managed to do that in her position was beyond the Doctor... may have to do with her gymnastic abilities, he knew oh so well!).
Now, they stood in front of the apartment building, watching the fire men work and ignoring their neighbours' enraged voices ("First they keep everyone awake with their perverted noises and then they burn down the whole house!", "Outrageous!", "We should sue them!", "No chance... that girl is a Tyler.", "Oh, right. She should watch her steps. Being in the limelight and all.", "Yeah. Pete Tyler must be so disappointed with his daughter.", "If it were mine...").
The Doctor looked sidewards at Rose, trying to catch her eye and see if she became upset because their mean words. He was rather surprised to find her beaming at the flames.
She must have sensed him looking at her, since she turned her head to him. "Brilliant, isn't it?" Rose asked him, beaming even more.
Confusion grazed the Doctor's features, when he asked, "What is? Rose... are you all right?"
"'Course I am. Doctor, think about it.... Escaping the flames, running away from certain death, saving ungrateful inhabitants... We haven't had any action for a while since Pete refuses to let us do any fieldwork." She bumped his shoulder with hers and grinned even wider. "Just like old times, isn't it?"
The Doctor grinned back but then rubbed his chin in mock thoughtfulness. "You know, I have had some action..."
"Doctor, opening the door for my mother in nothing else than a short apron doesn't count."
"Oi, she seriously hurt me!" he muttered with a pained look on his face.
"Oh, you big whiner! And you stop it, Chuck! They have work to do..." Rose bowed down to pick the little palm tree up who had been projecting very disturbing thoughts about him and two twin orchids into the firemen's heads. They shook their heads vigorously and tried desperately to concentrate on their work.
Hey, how did you know?
"You have been in my head for weeks now... believe me, I can see the signs," Rose answered dryly and gave him a little knock on the...well... crown. Then she tucked him under her arm and reached for the Doctor's hand.
He turned to her and grinned. "Run?"
"Run!"
And run they did.
~*~
Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler had to endure many things in her life... one of them was her ridiculous long name. Since age five she insisted to be called 'Jackie' instead and having even a strong slap at such a young age... nobody complained.
Despite the normal troubles of bringing a daughter up on her own, every other trouble had to do with a rude alien that swept her daughter off her feet.
Slitheen, Cybermen, Daleks,... Jackie Tyler had her fill with monsters but everyone together was nothing against the Doctor and her daughter being together. The pair wasn't just attracting trouble, they were making it. That didn't make it any easier for Jackie to keep her temper at bay, though.
"You burned down the entire apartment building?!" she yelled on top of her lungs at the two slightly embarrassed looking people in front of her. Folding her arms and using her most perfected glare, Jackie felt proud to see them shrink a little in their seats.
The Doctor tugged at his ear, avoiding to look into her eyes. He feared to turn into stone if he did... "Weeell, strictly speaking, it was this tiny alien race... Nasty little things, really. They climb into electronic equipment, install one of their little bombs and BOOM, the entire house is burning. This is one of them..." He took a little jam jar with tiny holes in the lid out of his pocket to show it to Jackie, only to find the glass empty and with a big hole where the bottom was supposed to be.
BOOM! The sound came out of the kitchen, accompanied by dark smoke and Pete's voice: "The cooker exploded! Don't worry, I have everything under control!" Seconds later, he ran screaming out of the kitchen, shook his burning arm and then rolled on the floor, trying to extinguish the flames.
The glare Jackie bestowed upon the Doctor beat every one ever before. He swallowed hard. "Um... ups?"
He never saw the punch coming.
~*~
The Doctor hold a pack of ice on his black eye, while Rose showed some houses to him on her laptop.
"Why am I always the one getting punched?!" he moaned between a nice little bungalow and a huge posh villa. "It's like someone who hates me, is writing my life down! A crazy little fella who sits giggling in front of his keyboard, trying to decide what he can do to make my life miserable..."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous! We are not part of a story or something... Hey, this one is nice!" Rose exclaimed excitedly when she found a nice little house with garden. "And not even that expensive... look!"
"Rose, do we have to do this now? Your mother nearly cost me a regene-... I mean, life. Your mother nearly cost me my life, Rose."
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him like he was completely mad. "Do you really want to stay here any longer than necessary?"
"...Good point," the Doctor muttered while continuing to cool his hurting eye and flinching at the thought of another few punches.
"Hey, we are lucky! They have a showing today... we can go to take a look at it."
"I don't know... isn't it a little bit too small for us?"
"It has got a whirlpool and you can paint it in TARDIS blue..."
The Doctor grinned broadly. "Alons-y, Rose Tyler!"
And off they were.
~*~
The house was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. A big living room and kitchen downstairs, three other rooms on the second floor, two bathrooms and a big manicured garden... exactly what the Doctor and Rose were looking for... among twenty other people.
It was quite discouraging that they arrived, only to find the house full of other interested parties... but they wouldn't be the Doctor and Rose, if that would stop them getting what they wanted.
"Dear, are you sure this is the house where that terrible murder happened?" the Doctor asked Rose in the near of a very interested looking pair.
"Of course I am, darling. It was all over the news... a young woman was stabbed right in this room..." Seeing that the pair looked their way, now not so happy at all, she added, "They even said that she is still here... as a ghost!"
"Lovely! Maybe we can get a picture of her!" He beamed at Rose when the pair walked out of the house like being stung by an adder. "Great! One down... now, how about that one?" He pointed to an older looking woman who inspected the fireplace in the living room. Rose gave him a thumb up and walked up to the woman.
"Hello, I'm the neighbour. You are interested in the house?" The woman nodded, looking curiously at her. "Lovely, you are just what our club needs! Now, how do you feel about leather, pleasurable pain and collars?" The woman gaped at Rose, grabbed her handbag from the mantelpiece and hurried out of the house. The Doctor high-fived Rose, lay his arm around her and led her to the next target, an older looking couple. One by one, the people ran out of the house, a few even screaming, and the estate agent looked frantically around for the source of the problem. The diabolic two made an effort not to be seen when they approached the last couple on the second floor. The pair took a look at the bedroom when the Doctor walked over to them.
"Hello, we are from the end of the street. We just wanted you to know about the... speciality... of this house." One look at the faces of these two, made it obvious for the Doctor that it won't be as easy with them as with the others. "Ehm... you know that it was build on a graveyard?"
The man grinned at his wife. "Graveyard! Did you hear that, Pearl? That sounds so mysterious! Maybe there will be even some ghosts!"
To the Doctor and Rose's amazement, the woman grinned back. "Oooh, Carla will be so jealous! Her poltergeist is nothing against this! We should go to the estate agent right away..."
"No! Wait!" Rose came to the Doctor's side for the rescue. "There is also the brothel across the street! You really shouldn't-"
"Brothel?" she was interrupted by the man. "Now, that's perfect! Now we know where to spent the Friday nights, right sweetheart?" He winked at his wife, who giggled in return. The Doctor and Rose gaped openly at them.
"The neighbours..." the Doctor muttered desperately. "They... They are... religious! Very religious people! Going to church every day and all..." Rose looked at him like asking if he seriously thought that would help, when a look at the couple distinguished all her doubts... They looked absolutely disgusted!
"Come on, Pearly! We don't want to live next to such... freaks!" The man shook the Doctor's hand and thanked him for telling them about that 'abnormality' and left hand in hand with his wife. When the Doctor and Rose were sure that the couple was gone, they hugged and cheered their victory.
The estate agent looked devastated when they came down the stairs and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders like a maniac, shaking him. "Please, take the house! Please! All other interested parties are gone... My boss is going to kill me! I will give you a discount of twenty percent! TAKE IT!"
The Doctor and Rose looked at each other, grinned, turned their heads back to the agent and said simultaneously, "We will take it!"
~*~
It took them two very long days to make the deal but now they were finally standing inside of their new home, armed with paint buckets and brushes and grinning like Cheshire cats. It felt strange to have a home of their own again... to have somewhere, where no people were knocking when they became too loud or the police came to make sure that the noises their direct neighbours heard indeed wasn't Rose finally getting rid of her future husband. No, here they could be as loud as they wanted to be, without undesired company. It was a little bit like being in the TARDIS again... just the two of them and nothing could get through their doors without permission (and that meant nothing... the Doctor was already working on a new protection shield).
Knowing all too well how their painting would probably end, they covered the floor with a plastic blanket. Grinning at each other, they took off their clothes to fulfil number two on the list: naked painting, dipped their brushes into the paint buckets and began to paint their bedroom in TARDIS blue.
Of course, it took them only a few minutes until painting the walls became too boring and they began to paint each other instead. Rose squealed and giggled when the Doctor ran after her, swinging the dripping brush like a weapon and laughing like a maniac. Soon, he caught up with her and draw a big blue line on her ass, making her yell in surprise. Slowly, she turned around, a dangerous glint in her eyes already present and the Doctor gulped. Rose gave a warrior scream, Leela would have been proud of, and the Doctor turned around to run for his life when he felt a cold and wet sensation on his back. Glaring over his shoulder at an innocent looking Rose, the Doctor launched to attack again and so the battle began...
Thirty minutes later, they stood side by side in all of their blue, naked glory, looking at the barely coloured walls and empty paint buckets on the floor. Their bodies were completely blue by now and Rose felt strangely reminded of their time on Platform One, where they met the Crespallions. She began to giggle hysterically at the thought and the Doctor looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Thinking that's funny, don't you? Weeeell, it's not me who has to ask Pete to import another twenty buckets of our favourite colour..."
Rose rolled her eyes but smiled. "I may have to ask but you, my love, are the one who has to tell my mum that we will move out of the mansion a few days later..."
Pouting like only a human Time Lord could do, he thought about Jackie's broom when yet another thought crossed his mind. "Ehm... Rose? This paint does come off, doesn't it? We have work tomorrow..."
Rose's grin vanished from her face in an instant. "...oh."
"Oh? Oh?! What do you mean 'oh'?"
"Well..."
~*~
Jake did a double take when he saw the couple next day at work. Their faces... no, their complete bodies as it seemed, were deep red. He even saw a few scratches here and there.
"Good Lord! What the hell happened to you?!"
The Doctor shot Rose a short glare, who grinned sheepishly and answered, "Played around with paint... had to scrub it off... all of it."
Jake laughed heartedly. "You two are so... I can't even put it in words! I wish Mickey would be here... he would love to see that! I mean, look at your faces... priceless... absolutely priceless..."
"Faces? You should see our-"
Rose put a hand on the Doctor's mouth to keep him from say another word and said, "Too much information, honey... too much information..."
Jake lay laughing on the floor.