Jackie determined that she had waited long enough. The cold had settled into her skin and the sky was beginning to invite darkness into the clouds above her head. Moisture hung in the air around her. They needed to get inside before the rain started; although, despite her still rising frustration, she couldn't bear to physically separate Rose and the Doctor. "It's freezing out here!" she shouted at them, hoping they would simply hear her and realize it was time to go. Rose didn't seem to notice she was there, nevermind respond. She saw the Doctor turn his face to look at her, eyes wide like some silly lost puppy. She gestured towards the bed and breakfast at the edge of the beach. She wasn't waiting any longer. They could follow her if they ever decided to quit standing on this bloody beach.
She'd never headed towards a crummy bed and breakfast so quickly in her entire life. She was sure of it. Her mobile had gone missing, probably during the chaos of finding Rose and facing the end of the world, and she could no longer keep her focus off of her next concern: Pete and Tony. Oh, of course they would be just fine, but she ached to see their faces again and hold them both in her arms. Pete would be sick with worry over her by now, probaby pacing the house and making too many phone calls to Torchwood in an attempt to ease his anxiety.
She was relieved to escape the beginnings of a storm into a rundown lobby with a surprisingly homey fireplace dying down on her right. The woman seated behind the wooden desk at the far end of the room made no move to acknowledge her presence. So, naturally, Jackie marched right up to the counter without another thought. "S'cuse me," she announced, "I'm Jackie Tyler and I need two rooms and a phone to call my husband."
The woman stared for only a moment before obliging, but said nothing before handing Jackie the telephone from behind the counter and proceeding to type hurridly on the keyboard next to her.
Jackie pulled the phone closer and dialed the house number, fingers drumming against the counter as it rang. The familiar lilt of the housemaid greeted her on the other end of the line, but she wasn't in the mood for small talk. "Marigold, can you put Pete on?" she asked impatiently, her voice noticably rising towards the end of the question. It was only a moment before she heard him pick up.
"Jacks? Is that you?" he called out. She could hear Tony in the background shouting for her.
"Pete! We're home! Well," she corrected, "almost. That daft alien dropped us in bloody Norway again. Still can't get it right! Oh, it hasn't been too long, has it? He didn't leave us some 10 years in the future, did he? I'll slap him if that's the case, or what's left of him anyway. How's my little man?"
Tony's continuous shouts in the background as Pete explained that they'd only been gone for about two days were answer enough to her worried questions. Combined with Pete's reassurances and a couple anecdotes on what she'd missed while out saving the universe (a day full of crayons and water guns along with a visit to the park complete with ice cream cones), Jackie's mind was soon at ease. Satisfied that things at home had not spiraled out of control, she expressed the only other important thought that had been racing through her mind since returning. "She's safe, Pete," she breathed out after a momentary silence. "She's here and he made sure she was safe," she paused. "He always does." She felt tears in her eyes, but held them back when she noticed the woman behind the counter had stopped typing and was sitting very quietly in her seat.
At this point, Jackie was certain the woman was watching her expectantly. Jackie shot her what she hoped to be her most threatening glare until the woman was shocked back into her work. "We'll be fine here for the night," she responded to Pete, who had been questioning her nervously on her sudden silence. "Just send a car in the morning. Don't think I can stand the place much longer than that." She gave another pointed look at the woman, who had placed a couple of keys onto the counter. "Love you, too, sweetheart. Give Tony extra kisses for me."
At that, she slammed the phone back down and turned to face the woman. "Don't you even think about going to the papers to rattle off some story. I know your type, can't seem to resist the gossip and all the bother. Don't make me call my husband back on your account, or it'll be your job!"
The woman's eyes were wide, but she did not stop staring until Jackie took the room keys from the desk. "You'll be just down the hall to your right, Mrs. Tyler."
Jackie assumed her point had been made as the woman turned away from her and, finishing up as quickly as possible, she marched down the hall, hoping Rose and the Doctor would be in soon.
He was wet. He was wet and cold and had realized just as they walked in the door that he had left himself without the sonic screwdriver. Of all the things he knew about himself, he never realized how incredibly inconsiderate he could be! Incredibly indubitably inconsiderate. Irrefutably. Well, maybe not irrefutably, but it was certainly irresponsible. He could've made another sonic in a pop-the other him that is-could've at least had the decency to leave one behind. Now, he would have to just wait to dry, while remaining very, very cold.
"You okay?" Rose had apparently been watching him during his mental soliloquy and was currently looking him over with a concerned expression.
"I don't have my sonic."
"S'alright. You can make another, yeah?"
"But I'm cold, Rose. I've never been so cold in my entire life."
Rose smirked, "In your entire life? 900 plus years and probably more planets than that and this is the coldest you've ever been?"
"Yes," he turned to face her. "Wellll, no. Not technically. Recently, I've been frozen to nearly minus 200 degrees which, although it didn't quite work out as I'd hoped, was really just painful. Before that, I do recall being exceptionally cold while I was trapped on an ice planet, but it was very brief and a very different experience, Time Lord physiology and all, so I didn't feel as cold as I might have been." He paused to look her directly in the eyes. "Rose, I'm human now. I'm wet and I'm cold and I can die or get quite sick."
Rose desperately tried to stifle her laughter as the Doctor rambled, but only managed to squeeze it in until it popped at his final, ridiculous sentence. She couldn't stop the giggles that tumbled out of her despite an excessively injured look from the rain-soaked and clearly endangered Doctor. In fact, his offended expression only brought out her laughter in full force as tears gathered at the sides of her eyes.
"Am I missing something here? I really am rather cold right now and I don't think you're helping."
"Sorry. Sorry," she managed to breathe out, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. "Just a bit hysterical, I think. Long day, night, whatever it was." She stood up straight and tried not to laugh again. "Let's get you warm, then. Y'know, so you don't die. Go stand near the fireplace for a bit."
"I don't believe you're taking this seriously."
"'Course I am. Why'd you think I wouldn't?"
"You laughed at me."
"Laughed next to you while facing you. Big difference. 'Sides, you're a nutter for thinking you're gonna die from a little rain, yeah?" She grinned and turned away to head towards the front desk, barely able to contain her amusement at the expression that he would undoubtedly have made at her insult. He only responded with an indignant hum as he shifted closer to the meagre flames in the hearth.
The woman at the desk seemed to be expecting them. It was clear Jackie had already made an impression as the woman plopped a key onto the counter with a strange smile and politely insisted that the rooms were "just down the hall to your left, Miss Tyler. Mrs. Tyler has already been through."
The Doctor held back his own laugh at the thought of the terrible wrath of Jackie Tyler raining down on the poor, though a bit stoic for his liking, woman behind the tattered old counter. It was only another look from Rose that brought the helplessness back to his face and he followed her down the hall without a sound. After all, he was aware of the need to show only calculated weakness under the Tyler gaze, despite his deepest wish to scoop her up into his arms and never let go again.