BETTER WITH FOUR

Chapter Four

The Doctor was incredibly, incredibly bored.

He and his three companions had just gotten back from spelunking in the purple caves of Rawentoo Clavadar, a lovely excursion that had seen no major mishaps, apart from Rose skinning her left knee when she went through a narrow opening. Other than that minor scrape, there had been no monsters, no cave-ins and no vampire bats flittering about their heads. Just a relaxing holiday.

But, after the thrill of going down and exploring the deep, dark caverns, he was still a little wired and raring for action. Unfortunately, the only action in the console room was the rotor going up and down.

And so, the Doctor sat there on the captain’s chair, full of energy and mischief…a bad combination. Predictably, his thoughts turned to his three companions. Wondering what they were doing, he got up and went to have a look.

He found Rose sitting in the den reading a book. She was wearing a pink shirt, her denim dungaree skirt and a plaster on her knee. The Doctor strolled over to the back of the couch, leaned down and put his head on her shoulder.

“Guess what, Rose?” he said.

Rose turned the page.

“There’s a Dalek parade in the console room,” she said, keeping her eyes on the book.

“Uh, no, but that would be a sight to see,” the Doctor said. “No, I’m bored, Rose. So, I want you to amuse me.”

Without taking her eyes off the book, Rose held up her right hand. She made a bunny head, mimed hopping and then put her hand back down.

“There, consider yourself amused,” she said.

The Doctor eyed her.

“That was not helpful,” he said.

“Well, tough, I’m at a good part in this book, I’m not gonna stop what I’m doing to make you happy. Go bother Donna or Martha.”

She gasped when the Doctor snatched the book from her hands.

“What could you possibly be reading that is far more interesting than me?” he said.

Rose glared at him while he examined the cover.

“Knight Mist,” he muttered, reading the title.

He rolled his eyes when he noticed the buff English knight embracing the buxom dark-haired woman on the cover.

“Let me guess,” he said. “The woman with the breasts as big as her head is imprisoned in a castle by her wicked stepfather and this Fabio reject has to go slay a dragon to save her. After which, there is tons of graphic sex between them. Am I right?”

Rose snatched the book from his hands.

“No,” she said.

She sighed.

“And now you’ve made me lose my place.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was the runway model slash knight about to quote Shakespeare before he saved mega-breasts from her dark fate?”

“Go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t care where, just go and leave me in peace. I wanna read my book.”

The Doctor sighed and leaned back up. Sulking, he walked out of the room in search of Donna or Martha.

“Ah, bollocks,” Donna said, as the ping pong ball shot past her. “I really suck at this game.”

Martha grinned.

“Not me. I used to play this all the time with Leo and Tish and I beat them almost every time.”

Donna found the ball and walked back to the table.

“You need to go to China and enter their ping-pong tournaments then. I bet you could make a fortune.”

“Nah, I’m not that obsessive about it. I just like to do it for fun.”

Donna started to serve the ball when the Doctor stepped into the room.

“Well, well, if it ain’t tall, weird and skinny,” Donna said, as Martha giggled. “What’s wrong? Everything in the TARDIS fixed or something?”

She noticed the Doctor’s hand was behind his back.

“You better not have a water pistol back there!” she said to him.

He grinned and brought his hand around. Both of them frowned when they saw the Mister Potato Head in his hand. They glanced at each other.

“Wow, the alien genius owns a child’s toy. Why am I not surprised?” Martha said.

“SILENCE!” the Doctor bellowed, as he thrust the toy in her face. “I am General Spud of the Tenth Mister Potato Head Battle Fleet, and I will not be mocked by humans!”

Donna groaned and rolled her eyes while Martha pushed the toy away.

“That’s really cute, Doctor. Now if you don’t mind, Donna and I were playing ping-pong and…”

“YOU WILL KEEP SILENT! I AM YOUR SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY! WE MISTER POTATO HEAD PEOPLE WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY CHEEK FROM HUMANS! SPUDTAR-HA! SPUDTAR-HA! SPUDTAR-HA!”

Martha and Donna sighed, as the Doctor chanted and bounced the toy up and down on the table.

“I’ll handle this,” Donna said.

“SPUDTAR-HA! SPUDTAR-HA! SPUDTAR-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The Doctor screamed when Donna seized a hold of his left ear and began to drag him out of the room.

“I believe you were told to leave us alone,” she said, pulling him out the door.

“OW! DONNA! QUIT IT! YOU’RE GONNA TEAR MY BLEEDIN’ EAR OFF! I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE, ALRIGHT? LET GO!”

He gasped when Donna let go, spun around and marched back into the rec room. Groaning, he rubbed his aching ear while he headed back towards the console room. On the way, he passed by the den. Pausing, he changed course and stumbled inside.

“Roooooooooooooooose!” he whined, holding his injured ear. “Donna was mean to me! She hurt my little ear; can you please make it all better?”

Rose sighed when he leaned over her shoulder. She turned and looked into his pleading brown eyes.

“Make better, Rose,” he said, amping his usual charm up a zillion notches.

Rose leaned in and kissed his ear gently.

“Oooo, that felt nice. I feel tons better now, Rose. You’re such a nice person. So kind and considerate to me. You don’t smack me around and rip my body parts off my person like certain companions do. That’s why you’re my favorite companion in the whoooooooooooole world.”

“That’s nice, Doctor,” Rose said, patting his head. “I’m glad I could make you feel better.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re glad. And now, why don’t you put down the book and come have some ice cream with me, hmmmm?”

Rose thought that over and decided that ice cream did sound pretty good. Nodding, she put her bookmark in the book, laid it down and walked with him out of the den, soothing his wounded ego and ear with words of love all the way to the kitchen.

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