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It was almost funny, in a way.
He’d been on the receiving end of torture many, many times in his long life, from countless scoundrels wishing to wrest the priceless secrets stored in his mind. Almost none had succeeded.
Jackie Tyler had inadvertently managed to top the lot. If she marched in the flat now and demanded the schematics for a time machine in exchange for an end to it, he’d be gratefully putting pen to paper before she’d finished her sentence.
It had been three hours, thirty-two minutes, and fifty-eight seconds since Rose had left with her mother for some “Girl time”- shopping and manis and pedis and lots of other things the Doctor had no knowledge of. And yet, here he was. Rose had gotten a phone call from her mother, and then she’d begged, and when could he ever refuse her anything?
So they’d left.
And Rose had begged him not to leave, to wait here for her. Not that he had much choice on that front.
His fingers were twitching, and he itched to go back to the TARDIS. Tinker for a bit, maybe. But she’d decided that now was a brilliant time to do some complicated self-maintenance cycles that meant it was unsafe to be inside of her, and so here he was. Locked out of his ship and stuck on Jackie’s sofa.
The Doctor stared at the ceiling, listening to the ticking of the clock as he sprawled back on the couch. This was going to drive him actually, properly mad.
That is, if the inanity of daytime television didn’t get to him first.
He’d read every book in the flat (which had killed about ten minutes), alphabetized them, and sorted them on various shelves. Then he’d read every other scrap of printed material in the flat, too, and now had strong opinions on what brands of hair dye were best and a lingering mental image of himself with long, flowing hair, like the women in Jackie’s magazines. Maybe Rose would like it? It didn't seem very practical, though. What if it got caught in things? Rose was always tying hers back or complaining about getting hair in her mouth, it seemed like a right inconvenience.
The reading had killed exactly fourteen minutes and fifty-five seconds, most of which was spent looking for material. And that had been three minutes and five seconds ago. And he had an unknown amount of time left to wait for Rose, and two hours and thirty-six minutes left for his TARDIS to finish her self-repair cycle.
And so there he was.
Stuck.
On Earth.
And more bored than he’d been in centuries.
The television had been going since Rose had left, and he’d rapidly flicked through every channel, systematically determining that none of them were any good at all. Nothing of interest, at any rate.
Sudden movement caught his eye and he looked down.
His leg was jiggling again- it always did that when he had to sit still for long periods of time. He never noticed when it started, and it was trying to tell him something. Okay, fine.
The Doctor stood up and stomped his stocking feet across the room, opening drawers on a nearby vanity and looking for something, ANYTHING, to alleviate this boredom.
A flash of bright colours made his hearts leap, and he grabbed the scrambled Rubik’s cube and examined it. A puzzle! A…puzzle…based entirely on algorithms…
Half a minute’s mental arithmetic later, and he’d mapped out an optimal sequence to unscramble the toy. Each twist was like trying to push a boulder up a hill- the internal mechanism was clogged with dust. He grunted and forced it into place, each squeaking turn an arduous adventure, until finally he was sitting on the floor with a proud smile and a solved puzzle.
A puzzle that was quite literally below the mental capacities of the newly-loomed. Joy of joys, he was regressing to a Time Tot in the creche, fascinated by bright colours and simple arithmetic.
Maybe he was going senile in his old age.
Although…
The Doctor held up the Rubik’s cube, examining it closely. It was sticky and clogged with dust. A good cleaning wouldn’t go amiss, even if it was just doomed to lurk in a drawer for the rest of time. Perhaps he could improve it…?
And then the Doctor stopped.
He dropped the puzzle, and slowly turned his head to look through the open kitchen door.
A smile crept across his face.
He’d found some entertainment.
Rose walked up the steps with a bagful of shopping, grinning so hard it hurt. Her mother had taken her out to go shopping and get their nails done, and on the way back, she’d run into a delighted Shareen. Herself and her mate were currently ascending the steps to her flat- Jackie had begged off a few minutes earlier, saying something about needing to put supper on.
“So tell me about this Doctor of yours, yeah?” Shareen asked, “S’ he that bloke in a leather jacket? I think he’s a bit mad, Rose.”
“I mean, yeah. That’s him. How d’you reckon he’s mad? You never met him before!” Rose stared at her mate with an eyebrow quirked, and Shareen looked around furtively.
“’Cos I saw ‘im earlier. He was over by the bins. Tegan upstairs, his mum threw out his old computer ‘cos it was broken. He left it out by the bins, an’ I swear I saw your Doctor carryin’ it upstairs with ‘im! What does he want with old rubbish, eh? Oooh, does he fix computers?”
Rose blinked. That was…odd. Why DID the Doctor need an old broken computer? What was he doing?
“He, uh, doesn’t- doesn’t fix computers.” Rose replied lamely, unsure how much to let on.
They climbed the top step, and Rose froze on the spot. She could hear Jackie yelling at the top of her lungs- and an equally-furious Doctor shouting right back.
“Oh god-“ Rose groaned, running towards the front door in a panic, “Shareen, I’ll catch you later, yeah?!”
Shareen laughed.
“Go save him! Your mum’s gonna bite his head off, from the sound of it!”
“I LEAVE THE HOUSE FOR HALF A BLOOMIN’ DAY AND YOU GO AND RIP MY BLOODY KITCHEN APART?!”
“I’M MAKING IMPROVEMENTS! All of this is so inefficient and useless!”
“OH, RIGHT, SO YOU’RE MAKING IMPROVEMENTS BY TAKING IT ALL TO BLOODY BITS!?”
The walls and floor were shaking slightly as Rose raced through the open door and into the living room, eyes wide.
Jackie was on her tiptoes, snarling RIGHT in the Doctor’s face. He had his arms folded and was scowling right back. The chair he’d been sitting in had fallen to the floor, and everything that had been on the kitchen table that morning was neatly stacked on the sofa.
And in its place was a carpet of components. It looked like someone had ordered the IKEA version of their toaster and microwave and spread each component over the tabletop, a neat conglomeration of parts coming together in the middle. The Doctor was clutching his screwdriver, and on the floor Rose could see the gutted insides of Tegan’s geriatric computer.
“All your technology is so primitive I could recreate it by banging two rocks together! What d’you need a toaster that uses coils and a spring!? What good’s a microwave if it can’t melt aluminum?! This isn’t a loss, it’s a gift!”
“A GIFT MY ARSE! ALL THIS WAS BLOODY EXPENSIVE, YOU FOGEY! YOU FIX ALL OF THIS RIGHT THIS INSTANT AND MAYBE I WON’T THROW YOU OUT OF MY FLAT!”
“MUM! DOCTOR!” Rose roared, running between them and shoving them apart, “STOP!”
Both the Doctor and her mother had the good graces to look a bit sheepish, both taking a step back and looking at Rose.
“Alright. You first.” She wheeled on the Doctor and cast a hand over the table full of parts, “One, what makes you think it’s a good idea to just- take the microwave to bits without asking?”
“I…I was bored,” the Doctor admitted, looking at the floor and shoving his hands in his pockets, “They were supposed to be back together by now, I just- got a bit busy recalibrating the circuits from that broken computer. I just wanted to improve them.”
“Alright. Good. Next time, don’t take our stuff to bits without asking first, got that? I’d have explained to mum and she’d probably have said yes to a nicer toaster or a nicer microwave.” Rose said, with a glance back at Jackie. Her mother was looking unbearably smug at the Doctor getting a bollocking.
“But- you-“
Rose pulled out her phone and gave it a waggle. “Just ring me next time, yeah? I’d have asked mum. And…er… you can fix all this, right?”
The Doctor nodded and looked at the floor.
Rose wheeled around and looked at her mother, folding her arms.
“And you! What’s your problem, huh? Barge in here and start yellin’ at him without askin’ what he’s up to first-“
“Now hold on a minute!” Jackie interrupted, “that’s my bloody microwave and my bloody toaster he’s taken to pieces, and I don’t know what he’s doing with them! What if it’s some alien gizmo that makes you into one of him Time-thingies, or lets him take over the government or- or-“
“Ignite the atmosphere?” the Doctor suggested, “Incinerate all life on the planet? Create a low-mass black hole that would instantly decay away with the energy of several million nuclear bombs? Oh, or I could cause the false vacuum to decay! I could induce the Higgs field to attain its lowest energy state, which would erase the planet and the solar system in quantum hellfire- What?”
Rose and Jackie stared at him.
“Well, to be fair, I couldn’t do that last thing with just a microwave and a toaster. I’d need at least three spoons, the foil wrapper from a burger, and a particle accelerator.”
“I’m making a new house rule, yeah?” Jackie said nervously, “No…No Quantum... no Higgs- You! You’re not allowed near my spoons.” She finished in a fluster, and the Doctor nodded.
“No triggering vacuum decay in the flat. Finally, a reasonable rule.”
“…Yeah, what- what mum said. No doing- any of that. Um. Anyway. I-“ Rose blinked a few times, “I’ve lost my train of thought.”
“You were telling off your mother for yelling at me?” the Doctor said with a smug twinkle in his eyes.
Rose sighed and turned back to her mother.
“Right, yeah. Don’t- Maybe ask him what he’s up to before you come in shouting, yeah?”
Jackie folded her arms.
“It’s my flat and my bloody stuff. If he’s going to mess around with it without askin’ first, I’m well within my rights to give him an earful!”
Rose sighed, knowing she couldn’t talk her mother down from that, and turned back to the pile of parts.
“Alright. You. Put all this back together, exactly as it was, yeah?” Rose said, gesturing at the ruins of the microwave and the toaster. The Doctor grinned broadly, grabbing his chair from the floor and setting to work.
Jackie shooed Rose into her bedroom to fuss with her daughter’s hair, muttering something about pigheaded men and honestly, Rose, why DO you stick with him...
The Doctor held up his reassembled toaster with pride in his eyes as Jackie scanned over it with a critical eye. It had taken ten minutes and fourteen seconds to complete the assembly- all the preceding time had been spent on upgrading individual components and cannibalizing the old ruined computer.
“Looks the same as it was.” Jackie sniffed, “Although- hold on, what’ve you done with the cord, you colossal plonker!? How’m I supposed to plug it in?!”
“You don’t!” the Doctor exclaimed gleefully, “See this here? Solar crystal, found one in me pocket. Leave it outside in the sun once every five years for about two hours each time an’ it’ll charge back up to full. Now, on the back…”
He leaned in and gestured at a few knobs he’d fashioned from ports on the old computer. They looked rather junky, but were far away from the standard toaster controls, so Jackie couldn’t complain too much.
“These are for controlling the speed of the toast ejection. Crank that knob up to the maximum and load in some bread and it’ll come flying out fast enough to break a window. Oh, and that switch there lights the toast on fire. Anyway, unless you flip that switch, you’ll never have burned toast ever again!”
Jackie looked decidedly mulish about her new and improved alien toaster, but with Rose leaning against the kitchen door, she sighed and said nothing.
The Doctor scooted the microwave over, looking equally as pleased with himself.
“Now,” he said, “I didn’t have a second solar crystal, so this one’s still got the cord. However I DID add a more conventional capacitorbank to store excess electricity while the microwave is plugged in. This switch here will allow you to use it. With the increase in power, you can now melt aluminum cans! Oh, and it’ll vent harmful or unpleasant gasses automatically, so if you put it by an open window you can use it to smelt excess waste metal. Haven’t tried it with steel but it should work. Oh, right, and if that switch is turned off, it’ll act as a normal microwave, although I added a coating to the tray that grounds metal objects put inside it so they don’t short it out. Happy?”
Jackie nodded, looking at the Doctor with concern.
He beamed proudly, looking at Rose with a rare genuine smile. She could see how proud he was- which was why she wasn’t going to tell him that her mother was a wee bit horrified.
“…Yeah.” Jackie coughed, “Anyway, you can put these back in the kitchen, and then set the table for three. You’ll be staying for supper, of course.”
It was the Doctor’s turn to look horrified.
Four days and one nightmarish shepherd’s pie later, the Doctor was fiddling with the console when Rose’s phone rang.
“Hey mum!” she said brightly, and the Doctor’s guts gave an unpleasant lurch. Oh no. No. Not again. PLEASE not again-
Rose’s smile faded as she listened to her mother, turning to look at the Doctor.
“S’ for you,” Rose said, handing him her phone.
“Hello?” he said, forcing the nerves from his voice as he held it to his ear. What the hell did Jackie want from him?
“You!” Jackie shrieked, “you- I- Ugh. Alright, you thick twit, your blooming toaster. You’ve made a real headache for me, you have. I’ve got half the estate banging on my door demanding to know where I got mine. You’ve got some nerve, you ‘ave-“
“Jackie. What is it. What do you want?” The Doctor said tersely as he interrupted her babble. A bit hypocritical but the mere thought of having estate gossip piped directly into his brain was making his neurons consider going on strike.
“Thank you. M’ trying to say thank you, you colossal plonker. For- for messin’ with my toaster.” Jackie sighed, like the words were a stubborn toffee stuck in her teeth.
The Doctor straightened up, staring at the time rotor in shock.
“Wha-?”
“Yesterday some…chav in a hoodie came and knocked my door down. Had a knife and found a key someplace. He was gonna make off with the telly and my jewelry, lucky I was home. I was in the kitchen, and he wasn’t sure what to do… I stuck some toast in your space-toaster and cranked it up to top speed and I think I took his front teeth out. With toast.”
The Doctor blinked a few times.
“I- you’re…you’re welcome?” he said flatly. How many people phoned him to say thank you, ever?
“Yeah. So, anyway. Now I’ve got half the estate banging on my door demanding to know where I got mine. So thanks for that. Anyway, take care of my daughter, you twit. Ooh, an’ if you want to come by this Saturday, M’ making shepherd’s pie again, since you liked it so much last t-“
“No problem, Jackie! Thanks much! Might be round, we’ll see, I’ve got a few dictatorships to topple and I had them penciled in for this weekend, bye!” he half-yelled in a panic, hanging up and handing the phone back to Rose like it was radioactive.
She giggled.
“So,” she said, “I take it we’ve got plans for Saturday, then?”
The Doctor nodded mutely.
“Remind me never to touch anything in your mother’s flat ever again.” He