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Quiet mornings were a rare occurrence. The rush to get to work during the week left barely enough time to style his hair before Rose was shoving him out the door. He’d been trying to get his time down but living in a time machine for centuries lent itself to endless time to get ready. He’d never had to rush morning routines before. It brought a whole other level of appreciation for humans who managed to make themselves presentable while doing the nine to five grind for thirty, or forty, or fifty years.
Even weekends, their hypothetical days off weren’t safe. Once he had his TARDIS grown he had every intention of going to this universe’s Shadow Proclamation and lobbying for it to be a criminal offense for aliens to cause mayhem on weekends. It was just rude.
Which is why this particular morning was one the Doctor planned on savoring. Rose unfortunately had been called away on a three day long mission, but even though he missed her, he had to admit it was nice to have the place to himself every once in awhile.
Settling into his favorite armchair the Doctor pulled out his super secret stash of celebrity gossip rags to enjoy with his tea. Feet were kicked up on the coffee table and Doctor Puff was lying on his lap, a contented purr emanating from him. This was the life.
He’d only gotten half way through the first article ‘Scandal in Downing Street: The Vice President’s Son Caught Cheating With Pop Star’ when his phone rang. A quick glance at the screen informed him that it was Jackie. If it was something about Rose on the mission he’d be getting a call from Pete or some other UNIT higher up. Probably nothing important, and as much as he loved Jackie, this was his morning to relax and indulge his Donna influenced passion without the prying eyes of, well, literally anyone else in existence with the exception of Doctor Puff. And even then it was only because he was 87% certain that Doctor Puff couldn’t actually read.
He let the call go to voicemail, and was able to make it to the next article ‘Grammy Winning Rapper Claims He’s Not The Baby Daddy.’ when Jackie called again. He narrowed his eyes at his phone. It could be important. She was calling twice, but he hadn’t had any texts or calls from Pete or Rose, so the chances of it being an actual emergency were pretty slim.
There was a ding as a text popped up on the screen next. “PICK UP THE PHONE!” Alright so maybe there was something important going on, but before he could call her back his phone was ringing again.
“Hello Jack-”
“I don’t know why you and Rose bothered to buy that phone of yours when you don’t bother answering when people call!”
“Good morning to you too then.” His reply was dripping with sarcasm. If someone was in the hospital that would have been the first thing out of her mouth. “What’s this about?”
“I need your help.” Maybe she needed someone to watch Tony. Well he wouldn’t mind spending the day with Tony Tyler. “Rose was saying how handy that screwdriver of yours was, and y’see I had some furniture delivered, and you would not believe it but apparently you have to put in a special request for them to put it together for you. So here I am standing in the guest bedroom and the bedframe is all pieces in different boxes. I just can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“You need me to come over to put together furniture for one of the guest bedrooms?” This was not how he was planning on spending his day off.
“Well that’s just what I was saying you daft alien. When can you get here?” The tone in her voice implied it was less a question of when he could be there and more of a demand he get to the Tyler mansion as soon as possible.
The Doctor looked from his gossip rag to Doctor Puff still happily curled up on his lap. “Sorry Jackie but I just can’t.”
“Can’t what?” And could you believe Jackie was the one that called him daft.
“Can’t come over.” Did he have to spell it out for her.
“What do you mean you can’t come over? Rose told me you had the whole weekend free.” Wasn’t the point of a free weekend that he could spend it however he wanted. Freedom. Literally part of the whole free weekend concept,
“Yeah, see, I would, but I’m stuck.” He idly started to stroke Doctor Puff’s back.
“Stuck how?”
“Doctor Puff’s on my lap so I can’t get up.” The ginger cat shifted himself into a more comfortable position before taking a large yawn.
Jackie was silent for a few seconds as she processed the information. “You’re telling me that you can’t help me with the furniture because you have a cat in your lap?”
“Yup.” he popped the p for emphasis.
“Well just pick up Doctor Puff and put him somewhere else. Can’t imagine it should be that difficult, even for you Doctor.” He rolled his eyes at her insult.
“Sorry Jackie. No can do. It’s the law.” He hoped she could hear just how smug he felt with that statement.
“I’m sorry did you just say that it’s against the law to move a cat off your lap? Where the hell is that even a law?!” For all Jackie Tyler attempted to put on the show of being on social media it was abundantly clear that her meme game was hella weak.
“I read it on the internet.” He also may have performed a bit of jiggery pokery with the router, but no need to get into that. Any digging he did through classified databases should be untraceable. At least they have so far. Probably nothing to worry about there.
“You read… I can not believe. You read a law about cats on laps on the internet and that’s why you’re not getting up?!”
“It was on reddit.” Lovely site reddit. He enjoyed reading all the little conspiracy theories, and correcting the ones that were halfway true.
“Since when did you even care about laws anyways. The number of laws you break on a daily, and you’re going on about an internet law about cats on laps!?”
“I only break ridiculous laws that don’t make sense Jackie.” It was like she didn’t even know him.
“So speed limits are ridiculous but made up laws about cats on laps aren’t?” Jackie was practically shouting now.
“See I knew you’d understand! Lovely to have had this chat and I’ll see you next week for family dinner.” He could hear her sputtering on the other end. “Buh bye Jackie.” With that out of the way now he could finally find out what shocking thing went down in the latest rose ceremony on The Bachelorette.
Doctor Puff for his part was content to stay curled up on his gangly Doctor creature’s lap. He was proud of his gangly Doctor creature, refusing to inconvenience him in the trivial pursuit of putting together furniture for the Jackie human. The training of his newest underling was going along quite nicely if he did say so himself.