Back to Our Reality

THREE

Back again with Chapter Three. It's longer and more lighthearted so I hope it's alright. I didn't know where to stop and so just kept going until I found the right place and I also thought we could do with a break from the heavy angst. Please enjoy and let me know what you think! :D

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"Do you think he'll be okay?" Came Mickey's question to Rose the next morning after he met her in the kitchen while she began making banana pancakes. It was a habit more than anything and it wasn't exactly her favourite breakfast, either. She would be damned if she ever told the Doctor that, though; last time with the banana sponge cake had been bad enough:

Newly regenerated and still trying out his brand new taste buds, the Doctor had found himself in the kitchen making a sponge cake when Rose walked in. She couldn't help but stare in a mixture of horror and amusement at the sight before her. There were mixing bowls and other abandoned utensils scattered every which way on almost every surface in the reasonably sized TARDIS kitchen. Alongside many of these were small chunks of banana (he still has a fetish about those, then). There was also flour everywhere and, considering what the Doctor was making, she couldn't help but wonder how on earth that had come to be.

But perhaps the most strikingly amusing thing of all was the Doctor himself. Clad in his usual brown pinstripes that Rose has just about gotten used to (and yes, Casandra had been right, he did look rather...'foxy' in them) he also had an apron tied around himself. His back was to her so Rose had no idea what was on the front of it; she hadn't even known that he owned one. He rarely ever did any form of baking – or cooking general, actually – in his last body: though there had been that one time with the chicken that Rose was, to this day, still trying to recover from. After that, he hadn't gone near anything to do with food – unless he was eating it.

Until now, that was.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" She asked, still standing in the doorway. She wasn't too sure she wanted to get any closer, if she was honest with herself. After that one incident, the Doctor and kitchen appliances had never been the best of friends.

Realising that he wasn't alone, the Doctor turned around with a winning smile on his face. Rose couldn't help but stifle a laugh when she noticed that some of the cake mixture he had been preparing was already in his fringe (also, rather disappointingly, she noticed that his apron was just plain blue – but TARDIS blue nonetheless).

"Rose!" He said happily, running his messy hands through his hair. "I making banana sponge cake and look:" he gestured around the kitchen, arms wide, "no kitchen equipment has yet been blown up – along with any chickens in the process." The last bit an afterthought, mainly for himself.

"Yeah, yet." Rose replied, taking notice of the Doctor's rather apt word choices.

"Oh ye o' little faith, Rose Tyler. I'll have you know that a few regenerations ago I was named the Best Baker in the Kosoplatian Galaxy! Mainly because they had never heard of bananas and were in awe at this wonderful, magnificent, brilliant piece of fruit only found on Earth. In all honesty, though, they'd never even heard of the Earth, but then there are worst things in the universe to not have heard of. Plus they really wouldn't get on with humans anyway – too liberal in certain respects. Did you know that the Kosoplatian Galaxy isn't really a galaxy, it's just one planet in which a whole range of species live? I mean, the planet it massive! Pretty much the size of a galaxy! Which, now thinking about it, is probably the reason it's called the 'Kosoplatian Galaxy' rather than the 'Kosoplatian Planet', but hey ho..." He was about to continue his ramble about the Kosoplatian Galaxy when he finally took note of the expression on Rose's face. "You're staring at me, you okay?"