DW Collaboration Fic: Spinach Shock (Ten II/Rose)
Title: Spinach Shock
Authors: mrv3000 and goldy_dollar
Pairing/Characters: Ten II/Rose, Jackie
Summary: The Doctor has a bad reaction to spinach.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,800
Beta: Thank you, shinyopals.
A/N: Happy New Year! *throws confetti* Just stay away from the spinach. And possibly Jackie Tyler.
He’d been trying to set a good example for Tony.
Okay, so he’d been trying to get back into Jackie’s good graces after accidentally crashing Torchwood’s Mac II airborne recreational vehicle into her back porch. Still, it wasn’t as though he’d intentionally meant to be sick all over the dining room floor.
Note to self, he thought, his part-human Time Lord metacrisis body did not react well to spinach. Especially spinach consumed at roughly ten bites per second in an attempt to taste as little of it as possible.
Blech. Spinach. He shuddered at the memory.
Soft hands pressed against his forehead, and then worried eyes peered into his. “Doctor?”
“Rose!” he said happily, delighted to see that she appeared to be standing by him despite the mess he'd just made of her mum's dining room. And then, “Rose, I think I’m dying.”
She looked amused. Ooh, that was a bit rude of her.
“You’re not dying,” she said. “Well, not today at least.”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand,” he said. He tried to rise to his feet, and then slumped back down again. Rose’s hands were back on his face and he closed his eyes. Rose’s hands-good. Rising to his feet-definitely bad. “I need to go to the hospital. I need… Rose, you know how much I love you, don’t you?”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, clearly unimpressed by his one-step-away-from-death declaration. “It’s just a bit of food poisoning. You’ll feel much better in the morning.”
“But-” he struggled to open his eyes. Bright light hit them and he squeezed them shut again. He settled for leaning into Rose, pressing his face against her shoulder. She sighed, and then put her arms around him, making soothing-though slightly irritated-noises in his ear.
He’s never felt this way before. How was he to know he couldn't consume that much spinach in such a short amount of time? It was rubbish. How did humans bear this?
A voice rose up from behind them. “He’s still moaning in pain, then? Blimey, he’s worse than your father.”
Oh, brilliant. He was dying and Jackie was mocking him for it.
"Open up," Jackie demanded.
The Doctor was a little afraid of what exactly he was supposed to open up. He opened his mouth, hoping that was it. A spoon with liquid was shoved in.
"ARG! BLECH!! Jackie, your plan is to torture me in my last hours? Rose," he said, turning to her and grabbing her arms tightly, "I want you to be happy. I think you should try and find some other bloke after I'm gone."
"Doctor."
"Granted he won't be anywhere near as good as me, and probably will have a rubbish intellect. Wouldn't know a Batalian Crystal from a bin lid. And he doesn't need to be too pretty, all right? Promise you'll remember me even as he puts his not-too-pretty hands all over you... On second thought, you'd be fine without that kind of annoyance in your life, wouldn't you?"
"Doctor."
"All right, all right, but nothing too... Oh! How about Charlie in accounting?"
"Charlie's in his fifties."
"Well, you do have a thing for older men."
There was a pause. "You know, I think you're right. I'm gonna call up Charlie right now and ask him on a date."
"While I'm on my death bed??"
"No sense in waiting, yeah?"
She couldn't be serious. "Rose!" he said. "I didn't mean it. I--"
He lunged after her, making it to his feet before falling right back down onto his face.
Ow.
"Doctor!"
Now Rose sounded concerned. He allowed himself a few seconds to feel smug before his forehead started throbbing with a new pain.
Rose dropped to her knees beside him, hands going to his shoulders. She helped him sit up, and he leaned heavily against her, fuzzily trying to get his bearings. He didn't feel quite so sick any more. Actually, he didn't feel quite much of anything. He felt weightless, like he was floating.
"Doctor?" Rose repeated, louder this time.
He frowned at her. "There are two of you."
Double Rose blinked at him. "Doctor, you all right?"
"Two Roses," he repeated, pointing at her and... other her. "Well, could be worse, I suppose. Could be two Jackies. Now that would be--"
Rose put a hand over his mouth and spoke above him, "Mum, what exactly did you give him?"
He grinned at Rose, suddenly feeling absurdly pleased. She hadn't left him for Charlie from accounting. Not that he ever expected her to, really, though he had really thought he might be dying. In any event, here she was, both Roses holding on to him with her shiny blonde hair and wide mouth and looking rather kissable. But kissing Rose would be bad. Very, very bad, what with Jackie standing behind them. That would lead to a slapping, and he certainly did not want that.
"Mum?" Rose repeated. Now there was only one of her again. One Rose. He tried not to feel disappointed. She was even beginning to look blurry and unfocused.
"Oh, I dunno. An antacid with a mild tranquiliser. I give it to your brother all the time. He never goes mad."
Sudden fear gripped him and he sat upright, some semblance of clarity reaching through the fog in his mind. "Jackie," he said, trying to sound calm, "that syrup didn't happen to contain traces of aspirin, did it?"
There was a long moment of silence. Rose's fingers clenched against his shoulders and he cricked his neck around, eyes landing on Jackie busily reading the syrup's label.
Rose sounded frightened. "Doctor, what's happening?"
His tenuous grasp on clarity began to fade. “Aspirin is deadly for Time Lords."
Rose’s face darkened. “What?”
“Though I am part-human now,” he said, barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth. Then it hit him. “I just need... Kitchen! Protein! Stimulate the inhibited enzymes into reversal..."
In an instant Rose was under his arm, pulling him up and towards the kitchen.
"Protein?" Jackie called out. "There's ham in the fridge!"
"Yes! Ham! Protein and salt! Two birds..."
"Birds? You need chicken and turkey too? You're having us on, aren't you?" Jackie asked as she set a plate of ham on the counter in front of him.
The Doctor grabbed the ham and shoved it into his mouth.
"And ham will cure you?" Rose said with still way too much worry in her voice.
"Need a shock!" the Doctor mumbled between mouthfuls.
"Stick your finger in the toaster," Jackie suggested.
"No good. I need... Erg." The Doctor stumbled into Jackie and planted a huge kiss on her. She responded by stomping on his foot.
"WHAT THE HELL'D YOU DO THAT FOR?!" Jackie demanded.
The Doctor waited. Nothing happened. He groaned and flopped forward onto the counter, his foot throbbing and stomach churning.
"I CAN TASTE HAM NOW, YOU NUTTER!" Jackie cried, disgusted.
Rose grabbed his arm. "Doctor, you needed a shock? You were trying to shock yourself?"
He nodded against the marble. "Didn't work. Expecting it. Expected Jackie to stomp on me too."
"So you need a really big surprise?" Rose asked hurriedly.
"BOO!" Jackie shouted. The Doctor managed to raise his head far enough to stare at her blankly. "Well, it works for hiccups."
"Doctor, I'm pregnant!"
Time stood still as black smoke rushed from his mouth. He slumped to the floor, physically fine except for a disconcerting ringing in his ears. "What?"
"WHAT?!" said Jackie.
"Did it work?" asked Rose nervously. "Are you better?"
"Me?" said the Doctor, "I'm right as rain, good as new, clean as a whistle. That's detox for you." He jumped to his feet, reaching into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. "What about you? Are you... you're not...?"
Rose's mouth opened in surprise when he flicked the sonic screwdriver on and ran it up and down her body.
"WELL?!" Jackie shrieked. The Doctor winced.
"Hormone and tissue density readings are normal." He turned off the sonic screwdriver and returned it to his pocket. "She's not pregnant."
Rose shrugged. "It was the first thing that popped into my head."
"Yeah. Blimey," said the Doctor. He ran one hand through his hair and then shook his head. "I've got to go... rinse the taste of ham and Jackie out of my mouth."
"Oi! How'd you like the taste of my fist?"
The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, intending to get away before Jackie could make due on her threat.
“Hang on a minute,” said Rose from behind him as he fled the kitchen and headed back towards the dining room. He stopped and Rose caught up with him. She drew his hand out of his pocket and linked their fingers together. “You’re really all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. He paused. “Thanks to you. That was quick thinking.”
"I wasn't sure it would even work." She hesitated, and played with his fingers, looking like she wanted to say more.
"Rose?"
"Is it really that horrible?" she said, looking up at him. "The idea of us having children one day?"
Well... That was a loaded question. In the old days, he probably would have avoided the question by changing the subject or abruptly taking them to a new planet. But now...
The Doctor thought about it. He thought about leaving Susan behind and destroying his entire family in the Time War. He remembered how it felt to have a glimpse of a life with Jenny, a chance to start over, only to have her die in his arms. But then he imagined Rose pregnant, her belly swollen with life, a life that they created. Together.
He swallowed. "Rose, it's... it's complicated."
Rose squeezed his hand. "I thought you might say something like that." Then she smiled. "C'mon, time to get you home. Between getting sick all over the floor and kissing my mum, I reckon we've got out of family dinners for at least a week. Maybe even two."
"Really?" said the Doctor, perking up. He wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulders and drew her close. "I planned the whole thing from the start, you know. I wasn't ever in danger of dying. In fact, I think we should tell old Charlie boy that the next time we see him at work. I'm going to be here for a good long while."
"Uh huh," Rose said and then she stuck her hand in his jacket pocket.
He blinked at her and then waggled his eyebrows. "Rose, is this really the best place for--"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm getting the key," she said in her you-daft-alien voice, pulling it out. "There's no way I'm gonna let you drive after that."
The Doctor glanced at the wreckage that had formally been Jackie's back porch. Right. That was what started the whole thing in the first place.
"Point taken," he said. "And, Rose? Never, ever let me eat spinach again."
Authors: mrv3000 and goldy_dollar
Pairing/Characters: Ten II/Rose, Jackie
Summary: The Doctor has a bad reaction to spinach.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,800
Beta: Thank you, shinyopals.
A/N: Happy New Year! *throws confetti* Just stay away from the spinach. And possibly Jackie Tyler.
He’d been trying to set a good example for Tony.
Okay, so he’d been trying to get back into Jackie’s good graces after accidentally crashing Torchwood’s Mac II airborne recreational vehicle into her back porch. Still, it wasn’t as though he’d intentionally meant to be sick all over the dining room floor.
Note to self, he thought, his part-human Time Lord metacrisis body did not react well to spinach. Especially spinach consumed at roughly ten bites per second in an attempt to taste as little of it as possible.
Blech. Spinach. He shuddered at the memory.
Soft hands pressed against his forehead, and then worried eyes peered into his. “Doctor?”
“Rose!” he said happily, delighted to see that she appeared to be standing by him despite the mess he'd just made of her mum's dining room. And then, “Rose, I think I’m dying.”
She looked amused. Ooh, that was a bit rude of her.
“You’re not dying,” she said. “Well, not today at least.”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand,” he said. He tried to rise to his feet, and then slumped back down again. Rose’s hands were back on his face and he closed his eyes. Rose’s hands-good. Rising to his feet-definitely bad. “I need to go to the hospital. I need… Rose, you know how much I love you, don’t you?”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, clearly unimpressed by his one-step-away-from-death declaration. “It’s just a bit of food poisoning. You’ll feel much better in the morning.”
“But-” he struggled to open his eyes. Bright light hit them and he squeezed them shut again. He settled for leaning into Rose, pressing his face against her shoulder. She sighed, and then put her arms around him, making soothing-though slightly irritated-noises in his ear.
He’s never felt this way before. How was he to know he couldn't consume that much spinach in such a short amount of time? It was rubbish. How did humans bear this?
A voice rose up from behind them. “He’s still moaning in pain, then? Blimey, he’s worse than your father.”
Oh, brilliant. He was dying and Jackie was mocking him for it.
"Open up," Jackie demanded.
The Doctor was a little afraid of what exactly he was supposed to open up. He opened his mouth, hoping that was it. A spoon with liquid was shoved in.
"ARG! BLECH!! Jackie, your plan is to torture me in my last hours? Rose," he said, turning to her and grabbing her arms tightly, "I want you to be happy. I think you should try and find some other bloke after I'm gone."
"Doctor."
"Granted he won't be anywhere near as good as me, and probably will have a rubbish intellect. Wouldn't know a Batalian Crystal from a bin lid. And he doesn't need to be too pretty, all right? Promise you'll remember me even as he puts his not-too-pretty hands all over you... On second thought, you'd be fine without that kind of annoyance in your life, wouldn't you?"
"Doctor."
"All right, all right, but nothing too... Oh! How about Charlie in accounting?"
"Charlie's in his fifties."
"Well, you do have a thing for older men."
There was a pause. "You know, I think you're right. I'm gonna call up Charlie right now and ask him on a date."
"While I'm on my death bed??"
"No sense in waiting, yeah?"
She couldn't be serious. "Rose!" he said. "I didn't mean it. I--"
He lunged after her, making it to his feet before falling right back down onto his face.
Ow.
"Doctor!"
Now Rose sounded concerned. He allowed himself a few seconds to feel smug before his forehead started throbbing with a new pain.
Rose dropped to her knees beside him, hands going to his shoulders. She helped him sit up, and he leaned heavily against her, fuzzily trying to get his bearings. He didn't feel quite so sick any more. Actually, he didn't feel quite much of anything. He felt weightless, like he was floating.
"Doctor?" Rose repeated, louder this time.
He frowned at her. "There are two of you."
Double Rose blinked at him. "Doctor, you all right?"
"Two Roses," he repeated, pointing at her and... other her. "Well, could be worse, I suppose. Could be two Jackies. Now that would be--"
Rose put a hand over his mouth and spoke above him, "Mum, what exactly did you give him?"
He grinned at Rose, suddenly feeling absurdly pleased. She hadn't left him for Charlie from accounting. Not that he ever expected her to, really, though he had really thought he might be dying. In any event, here she was, both Roses holding on to him with her shiny blonde hair and wide mouth and looking rather kissable. But kissing Rose would be bad. Very, very bad, what with Jackie standing behind them. That would lead to a slapping, and he certainly did not want that.
"Mum?" Rose repeated. Now there was only one of her again. One Rose. He tried not to feel disappointed. She was even beginning to look blurry and unfocused.
"Oh, I dunno. An antacid with a mild tranquiliser. I give it to your brother all the time. He never goes mad."
Sudden fear gripped him and he sat upright, some semblance of clarity reaching through the fog in his mind. "Jackie," he said, trying to sound calm, "that syrup didn't happen to contain traces of aspirin, did it?"
There was a long moment of silence. Rose's fingers clenched against his shoulders and he cricked his neck around, eyes landing on Jackie busily reading the syrup's label.
Rose sounded frightened. "Doctor, what's happening?"
His tenuous grasp on clarity began to fade. “Aspirin is deadly for Time Lords."
Rose’s face darkened. “What?”
“Though I am part-human now,” he said, barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth. Then it hit him. “I just need... Kitchen! Protein! Stimulate the inhibited enzymes into reversal..."
In an instant Rose was under his arm, pulling him up and towards the kitchen.
"Protein?" Jackie called out. "There's ham in the fridge!"
"Yes! Ham! Protein and salt! Two birds..."
"Birds? You need chicken and turkey too? You're having us on, aren't you?" Jackie asked as she set a plate of ham on the counter in front of him.
The Doctor grabbed the ham and shoved it into his mouth.
"And ham will cure you?" Rose said with still way too much worry in her voice.
"Need a shock!" the Doctor mumbled between mouthfuls.
"Stick your finger in the toaster," Jackie suggested.
"No good. I need... Erg." The Doctor stumbled into Jackie and planted a huge kiss on her. She responded by stomping on his foot.
"WHAT THE HELL'D YOU DO THAT FOR?!" Jackie demanded.
The Doctor waited. Nothing happened. He groaned and flopped forward onto the counter, his foot throbbing and stomach churning.
"I CAN TASTE HAM NOW, YOU NUTTER!" Jackie cried, disgusted.
Rose grabbed his arm. "Doctor, you needed a shock? You were trying to shock yourself?"
He nodded against the marble. "Didn't work. Expecting it. Expected Jackie to stomp on me too."
"So you need a really big surprise?" Rose asked hurriedly.
"BOO!" Jackie shouted. The Doctor managed to raise his head far enough to stare at her blankly. "Well, it works for hiccups."
"Doctor, I'm pregnant!"
Time stood still as black smoke rushed from his mouth. He slumped to the floor, physically fine except for a disconcerting ringing in his ears. "What?"
"WHAT?!" said Jackie.
"Did it work?" asked Rose nervously. "Are you better?"
"Me?" said the Doctor, "I'm right as rain, good as new, clean as a whistle. That's detox for you." He jumped to his feet, reaching into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. "What about you? Are you... you're not...?"
Rose's mouth opened in surprise when he flicked the sonic screwdriver on and ran it up and down her body.
"WELL?!" Jackie shrieked. The Doctor winced.
"Hormone and tissue density readings are normal." He turned off the sonic screwdriver and returned it to his pocket. "She's not pregnant."
Rose shrugged. "It was the first thing that popped into my head."
"Yeah. Blimey," said the Doctor. He ran one hand through his hair and then shook his head. "I've got to go... rinse the taste of ham and Jackie out of my mouth."
"Oi! How'd you like the taste of my fist?"
The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, intending to get away before Jackie could make due on her threat.
“Hang on a minute,” said Rose from behind him as he fled the kitchen and headed back towards the dining room. He stopped and Rose caught up with him. She drew his hand out of his pocket and linked their fingers together. “You’re really all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. He paused. “Thanks to you. That was quick thinking.”
"I wasn't sure it would even work." She hesitated, and played with his fingers, looking like she wanted to say more.
"Rose?"
"Is it really that horrible?" she said, looking up at him. "The idea of us having children one day?"
Well... That was a loaded question. In the old days, he probably would have avoided the question by changing the subject or abruptly taking them to a new planet. But now...
The Doctor thought about it. He thought about leaving Susan behind and destroying his entire family in the Time War. He remembered how it felt to have a glimpse of a life with Jenny, a chance to start over, only to have her die in his arms. But then he imagined Rose pregnant, her belly swollen with life, a life that they created. Together.
He swallowed. "Rose, it's... it's complicated."
Rose squeezed his hand. "I thought you might say something like that." Then she smiled. "C'mon, time to get you home. Between getting sick all over the floor and kissing my mum, I reckon we've got out of family dinners for at least a week. Maybe even two."
"Really?" said the Doctor, perking up. He wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulders and drew her close. "I planned the whole thing from the start, you know. I wasn't ever in danger of dying. In fact, I think we should tell old Charlie boy that the next time we see him at work. I'm going to be here for a good long while."
"Uh huh," Rose said and then she stuck her hand in his jacket pocket.
He blinked at her and then waggled his eyebrows. "Rose, is this really the best place for--"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm getting the key," she said in her you-daft-alien voice, pulling it out. "There's no way I'm gonna let you drive after that."
The Doctor glanced at the wreckage that had formally been Jackie's back porch. Right. That was what started the whole thing in the first place.
"Point taken," he said. "And, Rose? Never, ever let me eat spinach again."