"Zombies?" Rose yelled, ducking into the first doorway she saw, the Doctor pressing in after her. He gave her a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders, an overgrown boy saying it's not like I knew this would happen, sheesh.

"A nice trip back home, you said. Let's see your Mum, you said." She stretched around his side to peer out into the street, where a dazed man in a white shirt was staggering back from the corner shop, a lone oblivious traveler in a sea of chaos.

"Look, he looks like he's doing fine with the situation."

Said man tripped over a bucket lying on its side, nearly faceplanting into the sidewalk. A zombie dragging a leash turned away from this display of athleticism and headed down the street, shambling ominously towards their doorway.

"Reckon we ought to move somewhere else?" The Doctor asked nonchalantly, watching the zombie approach. Rose groaned.

It should have been easy enough to find the TARDIS. They'd left it a few streets over, in an alley by an Underground station. Of course, that had been before the sudden oncoming of the zombie apocalypse, and thus inconveniently placed zombie hordes hadn't been taken into account.

Rose had never been a particularly good listener during English class, but she was still relatively certain this was definitely an ironic situation, two intergalactic travelers of time and space being forced to crisscross London on foot while avoiding the undead.

Mr. Morton was probably turning in his grave right now. Or shuffling around Oxford Street, trying to eat shoppers' brains. The prat.

Or, worst of all, what if he was using this opportunity to educate people on the proper use of comma splices while eating their brains?

Rose shivered and pressed closer to the Doctor, sliding her hand into his.

Some things were just too terrifying to contemplate.

-

"It's funny how streets tend to blend together when they're all the same terraced houses and people running from certain death." Rose mused while the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to override a car's alarm system. The car alarm suddenly began blaring, echoing through the deserted street. From the far end of the block came a chorus of moans and the shuffle of heavy feet.

"Shiiiit," Rose hissed, yanking the door open and launching herself inside as the Doctor did the same on the passenger side. The car started with a cough and splutter and then roared to life, a Spice Girls song blasting from the radio.

A nude zombie flung himself at the Doctor's window as they passed, growling in frustration when the Doctor used his feet to kick him away. He landed a few feet away, knocking over two other zombies as he landed in the street.

Shake it to the right if you're having a good time, the song continued as the Doctor shaked himself off and smoothed back his hair, dusting himself off from his struggle.

"Well, that went exceedingly well. Remind me to analyze one if we find one that's down, will you? Imagine the interesting electromagnetic wave patt—"

The car died with a splutter, flinging them both forward and interrupting the Doctor. After gently stretching to make sure everything was still working, Rose turned and began digging around in the backseat, searching frantically for some sort of weapon. She came up with a packet of crisps, a child's light saber toy (quickly stolen by the Doctor, who had an unholy look of glee upon his face), and a plush doll that sadly wheezed "mamaaaa" when Rose flung it at the windshield.

"The movies always leave out the bit where you find the car with nothing useful in it." She grumbled, leaning over to fling open the glove compartment. A model rifle and a box of Nerf bullets shaped like shells fell out.

"Dead useful."

"Cheer up, it's not all bad," the Doctor said cheerily, holding up the child's light saber in his hands. It glowed in the confines of the front seat, crackling with electricity.

Rose's jaw dropped.

-

Six streets over they came across the man from earlier, walking briskly down the sidewalk towards them. Every now and again he stopped, waved his arms, and yelled, "Oh, zed words, over here, you great stupid lumps!," causing a stampede of slowly moving forms to surge towards him. He looked up as the Doctor and Rose passed, eyes widening as he took in the Doctor's weapon.

So amazed by this, he managed to trip for the second time that day, landing face first with a smash and groan against a mailbox. Rose stopped to make sure he was still alive, watching as he stumbled up with a moan, fingers clutching his bleeding nose.

"Alright then?" She asked finally when he seemed to have gotten the bleeding under control. He gave her a lopsided wan grin, blood flaking off of his skin.

"Oi, mate, you've got red right there" she said gently, using one hand to gesture wildly in the general direction of her face.

A few feet away from them came the whirring buzz of the light saber's arc and a triumphant exclamation. They turned as one to see the Doctor standing above the crumpled form of a decapitated zombie, coat billowing in the breeze.

The man turned to look at her, gobsmacked.

"That's what he does, the Doctor."

The Doctor yelled something to the sky and punched upwards with a fist, making Rose wince.

"Well, that too."

-

They found Jackie welding a battered golf club outside the Powell Estates, eyes and hair wild. Technically, the Doctor's head found her golf club, but it was all the same in the end.

"Oi, that bloody hurt" the Doctor wailed, clutching his head, light saber forgotten on the ground.

"Sorry," Jackie replied, eyes glinting with the sort of madness only a mother in the midst of zombie war could ever understand. "Thought you were one of them."

"Yes, because I'm so obviously undead," the Doctor retorted.

Jackie brandished her weapon again, making Rose step between them with soothing noises, arms outspread to separate them. "Let's all just calm down, yeah? We don't want to alert any of the zombies to our presence."

From the entrance to the building came the crash of rubbish bins followed by frantic yelling, "Oi, Jackie, Tommy's out on the third floor, we need back up!" Mickey careened into view behind Jackie, chest heaving, a baseball bat slung over a shoulder.

"Rose!" He exclaimed, enveloping her in a sweaty and not quite friendly hug. He pulled away and started to continue, before noticing the weapon at the Doctor side. "Is that an actual functioning light saber?"

Rose nodded.

They spent thirty minutes after that battling furiously with zombies, the brief pauses between the fighting filled with the sound of Mickey sobbing ecstatically as he swung the light saber through the air.

-

Afterwards they came to the general consensus that such heavy fighting took it right out of you.

And so they ended up in Jackie's flat, draped around the floor in various positions, front door neatly barricaded with a pile of mismatched furniture.

Rose took a swig of her beer, savoring the cool bottle in her hand, leaning comfortably against the Doctor's side. Jackie was pointedly ignoring this display of affection, instead focusing on the fact that she was missing EastEnders and the bloody cable company better have a repeat of it on soon, or there'd be much worse to deal with than the undead, thank you very much. Mickey was still staring with adoration at the light saber, beer forgotten by his knee.

"And all was well," the Doctor quoted, raising his beer in salute.

"Spoilers," Rose yawned, eyes half closed already.

Thankfully Mickey was distracted, or things could have gotten rather messy.

You had to be thankful for the little things, afterall.