Doctor Who: Love Handles - Chapter 1

In the never ending corridors of the TARDIS, Rose Tyler was on a search for the Doctor. She had just woken up from the first full night’s sleep she’d had in weeks, having then gone to get some breakfast like she always did before heading off to the console room where the Time Lord was usually tinkering with the ancient engines of his machine or muttering to himself. She had been surprised to not find him there.

She had then wandered to have a look in the library as he sometimes engrossed in a book while she was sleeping, but he had not been there. She had even resorted to knocking on his bedroom door, as there were rare occasions when he also went to sleep. But she had received the same result. No sign of the Doctor.

"Doctor!" Rose shouted for what seemed like the seventeenth time, sighing when she got no response once again. She pulled the sleeves down on the grey cardigan she had chosen to wear, gently brushed her blonde hair behind her ears and turned to wander down another section of the corridors.

Suddenly, she was certain she heard a voice. It was faint, but she instantly recognised it as the Doctors. It was emitting from further down the same corridor Rose was in.

If Rose was correct, after spending a good solid year and a bit on the ship, she knew was heading in the direction on the huge wardrobe that contained the clothing of at least three Primark’s put together. Even though the TARDIS sometimes seemed to switch rooms around, she was certain that’s what was there. Wasting no time, she set of towards the next corner.

"Doctor?" Rose called out as she rounded the sharp turn. She was pleased when she was met with the huge brown doors that did indeed lead to the wardrobe.

"Come on...this cost me fifty something from that planet...Nggh, oh come on!"

The Doctor's absurd mumbling could be heard faintly coming from the inside. She couldn’t make out some parts of the sentences that were pouring out into the corridor, which was making her only more curious.

"Come on you stupid-"

Deciding she couldn’t hold back any longer, she glided towards the brown doors, the one on the left already ajar for her to be able to slip inside without making any noise. As she walked through, she caught site of the huge spiral staircase that sat in the center of the room, surrounded by levels upon levels of clothes which she guessed weren’t all from Earth judging by some of the absurd designs.

"Does it not stretch or...Nhhhg!"

Rose quickly turned her head to where the Doctor’s voice was coming from. A huge mirror was placed behind a stack of shelves and clothes, and she figured that he was behind there.

"Please...come on…Rose will never let me live this down..."

Her ears perked up at the mention of her name, which made her curiosity burst its banks. She decided that, instead of just appearing, she would sneakily peak her head round to surprise him. He never liked it when she did that.  

Trying to be as quiet as possible, she snuck over to the pile of clothes and shelves and without making a noise, managed to pop her head around the corner. She had been right.

The Doctor was standing with his hands pressed firmly on his hips in front of the long golden mirror propped against one of the coral beams, fully dressed in his brown suit, apart from the brown suit jacket which Rose could see only had one button done up over his chest. He was staring intently at his reflection in the mirror, looking himself up and down and was completely oblivious to Rose’s presence.

"Right, let's try this one more time." He suddenly proposed to himself, moving his hands away from his hips and placing a firm grip on one of the buttons on his suit jacket around his lower stomach area and went to connect it with the slit on the opposite side. But to Rose's bemusement, the jacket didn’t seem to want to close up.

His face conjured in concentration and agitation, his teeth gritted as he desperately tried to shove the jacket closed around his midriff, but every time he pulled on either side, they simply wouldn’t meet. Rose was trying not to laugh at the pained expression on his face as he tried and failed another three times. She knew that the jacket he was trying to put on was one of his favourites, and probably the tightest of all the ones he owned. Slightly confused, she squinted her eyes to focus more on his stomach area, trying to figure out why it wasn’t buttoning up.

At first she had thought it had maybe shrunk when he had perhaps tried to wash it, but once she got a better look at his stomach, she realised exactly what the problem was. The only way she could put it, was that he was slightly beefier around his midriff.

Rose had been at her mother’s for a week since one of Jackie’s friends had been emitted to hospital and Jackie had naturally wanted to visit her every day. Rose wondered if he had stuffed himself silly whilst she had been away. He was one for his food, but he always seemed to be able to eat his weight in it and not put on a pound. So something had to be going on.

Deciding to give up her game of hiding, she straightened herself up and stepped out from behind the clothes. The Time Lord didn’t notice her for a couple of seconds due to his eyes being screwed shut, but when he opened them, he jumped a mile high, nearly falling into the mirror.

“Rose,” He panted, holding a hand to his left heart. “You don’t half know how to scare someone. What’s the matter?” He attempted to shuffle his suit jacket around, trying to make himself look innocent.

“Oh nothing,” She replied raising her eyebrows. “I was just looking around for you and I heard your voice coming from in here and just wanted to come and see…what you were doing.” She slyly folded her arms as his face seemed to begin to glide into a nervous expression.

“Well..er, I was just…just-trying on some new suits!” He exclaimed to Rose, turning back to face the mirror and falsely straightening the already neat pinstriped collar. “What do you think?” He said, outstretching his arms with a smile that hid his nerves from sight.

“It looks good,” She replied, nodding her head in approval. Deciding to begin having some fun, she pointed towards his stomach. “It looks a bit…I dunno, tight?”

“My suits are always tight.” The Doctor retorted a bit too quickly with a frown, looking away from her to avoid eye-contact. Rose began to walk towards him, the Time Lord still refusing to look at her.

“This one seems a bit, y’know, too tight?” She said, drawing her eyes to his stomach. Now she was up close, her theory was confirmed as she could see that he was indeed, chubbier. She could see that even his shirt underneath was straining around his middle. She mentally kicked herself, not being able to figure out how she hadn’t noticed when she had returned yesterday.

“I never really liked this one anyway.” He commented as Rose positioned herself directly in front of her. She gave him a cheeky smile as he finally braved to look at her again, her tongue poking out between her teeth.

“I think you could maybe do with a trip to the gym, mister.” Rose said, finally letting on to him that she knew what he was trying to hide.

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about…” The Doctor gulped, folding his arms over his chest stubbornly. As he did so, his now pudgier midriff stuck out slightly over his trousers.

“I’m talking about this-“She said, giving him a firm poke in the stomach and looking down towards it. He let out an embarrassed ‘oof!’, one of his hands rushing to the part where she had poked him.

“What do you mean ‘this’?” He said, giving emphasis on ‘this’, still ignoring Rose’s motive. “There isn’t a ‘this’, there never was a ‘this’ and there’s never going to be a ’th-“

“Oh you can give up the act now, Doctor.” Rose laughed, cutting him off. “It’s plain to see you’ve put on a couple of pounds; why else wouldn’t your jacket fit?”

The Doctor scoffed. “I have gone and done no such thing, Miss Tyler! I’m exactly the same as I was a week ago!”

“You might be, but your tummy would disagree I think,” She retorted, mockingly reaching about towards the pudgiest bit of his stomach and gripping it between her finger and thumb. He quickly slapped her hand away and covered his stomach with both his arms, bending over slightly. It was hard for Rose to miss the small pair of love handles that formed on his thighs as he did so. She smiled.  

“Oh come on, Doctor, there’s no point in hiding it. It’s not like your fat or anything; you’re still skinny. Just…with a bit of extra now.” She added as the Doctor unravelled his arms and let out a sigh.

"Fine. Congratulations, you’ve noticed.” He said in defeat, his arms dropping to his sides. “I thought you maybe wouldn’t…”

“I’m a woman Doctor, I would have figured it out sooner or later.” The Doctor looked towards the mirror again, undoing the one button of his jacket that he had managed to join. “So, now the cats well out of the bag, you gonna tell me how you managed to do this in a week?” Rose asked him.

The Doctor ran his long fingers through his thick brown hair, making it stick up on all ends. “Well, remember a couple of days before your mother rang I took you to that planet with the giant green slugs?”

“Yeah, of course, how could I forget when I was nearly killed by a pack of them?” His companion retorted back to him.

“Well, that bowl of blue stuff that I had from that Re’tanius’s shop, that stuff that you said looked and smelled disgusting, I just fancied some more of that the day I dropped you off and, every day for the past week I’ve been, stopping off at different times. On the bright side, I’m his favourite customer now!”

The Doctor’s attempt to change the subject didn’t catch Rose out and she simply raised her eyebrow at him. “So, are you saying you’ve become, addicted to some food?”

“What? No! Time Lords can’t do that…” He said proudly, placing his hands back on his hips. “I-I just think it’s really nice…tastes like bananas too.”

“That still doesn’t answer the question though, how can you have put on that much weight from a week of having one bowl of that stuff?”

“Well, to be truthful, I didn’t exactly just have one a day…for the past few days I’ve been having, well, two or three-“

“Two or three?!” Rose exclaimed, concern now brushing in her eyes. “Doctor, how can you say you’re not becoming addicted to that stuff? It must be some sort of high calorie junk food to make you put on weight that quick.”

“Oi! I can hear you!” The Time Lord huffed.

“Doctor look, I think – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – but I really think you could do with ditching that blue stuff and going on a diet,” Rose told him up front.  “You continue the way you are, you’ll be bigger than a Slitheen within the next few weeks!”

The Doctor was speechless for a couple of moments before he managed to respond to his companion’s suggestion. “Rose Tyler, how dare you! I’m the picture of health!”

“I wouldn’t call this the ‘picture of health’…” She said, yet again poking him in his now tubbier gut. “Even though you’re not exactly, y’know…huge, I think you could do with losing it. It just doesn’t look...you.” The corner of her mouth lifted to form a small frown to which the Doctor responded with a sigh.

“Fine, I’ll stay away from Getruta’gash,” The Doctor said, confusing Rose for second before she realised that was the name of the planet that they had been to and where the blue food came from. “Besides, I’m sure with all the running we do it’ll drop off by this time next week.” He added with a bit of enthusiasm which made Rose smile slightly.

“You’ve got to promise me, Doctor. Promise me you’ll stay away from ‘Getrurgha’ or whatever it’s called…I only want you to get better. You know I worry…”

“Hey, there’s no need to worry about me, Rose, I’ll be fine. I promise, I’ll never go back. I’ll go back to my very slim self in no time.” The Doctor reassured her with a wide grin plastered onto his face. Rose couldn’t help the urge that overcame her and she reached forward towards the Time Lord and placed her arms around him, embracing him a tight hug. The Doctor, surprised but heartened, wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her blonde hair. The pair let the moment go on, until the Doctor suddenly felt Rose put one of her hands above his thigh and he winced as she pushed her fingers into his flesh.

“Wow, you really have filled out,” She said in all seriousness which the Doctor yet again scoffed at, but had no time to reply. “But that hug was nice, I’ll give you that, actually better than having to feel all of your ribs and your thigh bones.”

“You’re really cheeky today, d’you know that?” The Doctor asked her as he pulled away from her laughing form. “Anyway, how about we take a random co-ordinate trip? We haven’t had one of those in ages.”