Summary: Rose has trouble with the TARDIS hiding her towels. Of course, even time machines can have a plan. Some feel-good fluff with Rose and Nine because I crave them, and I'm sure you do, too. RoseNine if you squint. Complete.

Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler.

Rating: K+ for language. Well, she is from London.

Words: 1,375

Genre: Humour, Romance

Spoilers: None :D

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is nothing of mine. All the BBC's creation and ownership. Believe me, it's something I cry about on a daily basis. But it's probably just as well, because I couldn't come up with the fantastic storylines anyway.

A/N: Wrote this in forty minutes. Just after I'd hopped out of a shower, actually. I blame my over-active mind. Honestly, I should get a new hobby! Anyway, enjoy.

Towels, Tantrums and Time Machines

The TARDIS had done it again.

Hidden the bathroom towels.

Rose didn't care what the Doctor said, there was no way that 'thing' was female – a woman would never have been so cruel.

They were there when she got in, of course. One on a rail by the shower, one by the bath, an airing cupboard full of them. Towels galore. It was only when she turned off the heated water and stepped gracefully out into the cold air that she realised said towels had all disappeared.

Not by the shower.

Not by the bath.

Not even in the airing cupboard.

She'd even stolen the hand towel by the sink, for pity's sake, as well as the one for her hair on the back of the door. Oh – and her dressing gown. And her clothes.

Rose pounded on the door agitatedly.

"Doctor!" she yelled loudly through the metal, her fist aching with the force of the hit. "Doctor, your bloody ship has done it again!"

No answer.

She hammered further, desperately. "Doctooooor!" she whined, bringing her hand to a rest.

Her damp hair was clinging to her neck and cool droplets of water were beginning to snake down her back. Rose shivered. She was wet, and cold, and very, very naked.

This didn't happen every time she had a shower. In fact, it hadn't happened in so long that Rose had almost forgotten.

The first time it had happened, she had assumed it was the Doctor. Fearing to leave the bathroom – just in case – she had waited, and waited, and waited, until he'd eventually wondered where she'd got to and had gone on a hunt. Rather embarrassedly, she had unlocked the door and taken the dressing gown he'd offered with a single hand snaked through the gap. A long conversation had ensued, in which the Doctor had said quite firmly that he had definitely not stolen her towels.

The TARDIS was huge. Endless, so far as Rose was concerned. It would take a long time for him to find her, if he wasn't looking. But she was far too shy to go unlocking the door and prance around the corridors to her bedroom. What if she rounded a corner and –

She blushed even thinking about it.

This time around, however, she appeared to be lucky. In the silence that began to unfold around her, she heard heavy, lazy footsteps echo through the corridor. Thank God.

"Doctor!" she shouted again with glee. The footsteps stopped, just outside the door. The answer, when it came, was confused.

"Er... Rose?"

"Your ship – your stupid, bloody ship – she's done it again!"

The Doctor smirked behind the metal door. "Maybe if you didn't call her a 'stupid, bloody ship', she wouldn't do it in the first place."

Rose groaned. "Look, I'm not arguing about this now: fetch me something, will you?"

"What d'you want? Rubber duck?"

"No!" Rose yelled back, mortified. "A towel, or a dressing gown, or something. I dunno. Just please, I'm getting cold!"

She listened tentatively as the Doctor sighed, then walked away. He spent so long, Rose was almost wondering if he had abandoned her (surely he wouldn't do that – would he?), when there was a light knock on her door.

She jumped, not having heard him walk up the corridor.

"Yeah?" she asked carefully, making sure she hid behind the door.

"I've found you a towel – unlock the door."

Carefully, she did so, and pulled it back slightly.

A hand, then a wrist appeared from nowhere, dangling a pale pink towel between the fingers.

"Oh, thanks Doctor," Rose gushed, grabbing the towel hastily, "You've no id–"

She stopped, mid sentence, holding the towel over her body in horror.

It was tiny.

A hand towel.

It only just about covered her bosom, and even that was a stretch.

Rose blinked, not quite being able to believe it.

"Doctor, what the hell is this?" she accused, mortified and furious. She slapped his hand – hard. It recoiled.

"Ow!" the Doctor complained from the other side of the door. Rose suddenly became quite concious of the fact that there was only a thin piece of metal between her and the Doctor. Perhaps it was just as well she trusted him.

She glanced to the towel.

Perhaps not.

"It's the only one I could find, all right?" the Doctor called back, though there was definite amusement in her voice.

Rose's cheeks coloured. "You're enjoying this!" she shouted hotly, waving the towel in the gap of the door: she knew he could see.

The Doctor sniggered.

"Well. Maybe a little. But you make it so easy, Rose."

"Is this how you treat all your guests?" she spat, trying to adjust the towel so that it was at least half-way decent on her body. No luck.

"Nope," he answered merrily. "Just you."

"Yeah, well, I wish you wouldn't," Rose shot back irritably, the coolness of the air a contrast with the heat of her anger. "'Cause I hate this, Doctor, and I hate you, too. Can't even have a bloody shower without it turning into an escapade."

He hesitated, not entirely sure that she was joking.

"Rose?" the Doctor's voice asked tentatively. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"What?" she snapped.

"You don't... you don't really hate me, do you?"

At the hurt and tenderness in his voice, she smiled and shook her head laughingly.

"Don't be daft. Course I don't," she chided. Then, in a more affectionate tone, she added, "I... don't hate you at all."

She heard him take a breath and let it out slowly.

"I... don't hate you, either," he said carefully, from the other side of the door. "You know that, right?"

Rose nodded, despite the fact he couldn't see her. "Yeah. I know. Thanks, Doctor."

The moment hung in the air a second longer, before the Doctor sighed and turned away from the door.

"I'll have words with the TARDIS. Hold on a mo."

His footsteps receded down into the depths of the corridors. Rose closed her eyes and leant against the door, an odd feeling sweeping through her. She felt happy and contented and just so normal that she wasn't quite used to it. She smiled, not quite sure why, and then realised that the temperature in the room was rising slightly. Enough to warm her.

Rose opened her eyes and glanced around. The towels were back, as were her clothes. She frowned, then raised an amused eyebrow – the Doctor couldn't have spoken to the TARDIS in such a short amount of time. Which meant the ship was doing this all by herself.

Rose tucked her tongue between her teeth in the side of her jaw as she bent down to put slip her clothes on.

She paused just before putting on her t-shirt, eyeing the wall suspiciously.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" she whispered softly.

The walls seemed to gleam that tiny bit brighter.

Rose smiled to herself.

"Thanks," she told the time machine.

And all the showers after that, her towels never again went missing.

Well, except that one time – many, many months later – when the Doctor insisted she looked so much more beautiful without and had the memories to prove it.

They hadn't left the bathroom for a good few hours.

She never did get that towel back.

End.