Stranded - Ten/Kate AU
Having stopped at the Rift in Cardiff to refuel, the Doctor found himself fancying paying London a visit. He was particularly fond of it as a city, specially because it stocked all of the necessities that he could never get anywhere else. As he was parking the TARDIS, though, the ship began to shudder, sending him flying onto the floor and sparks coming out of the console. Alarm bells started to go off inside his head and he got up, clinging to the console as he tried the best he could to land the ship with minimal damage. Much to his chagrin, this ended up in him crash landing somewhere that looked like the Chelsea end of London.
The console was almost in tatters, the main power had been overridden and switched off and he had no idea what the hell had caused it. He dusted himself off, then knelt down and opened up the floor panels to have a look-see what was actually working under there and assess what exactly he needed to do to fix his ship again. After a few minutes, he realised that there was no quick fix for this, it was going to take a bloody long time. A month, at the least. And he was stuck in London.
--*--
Just under a week later, he was almost out of supplies, the ship was getting irritated with him inside his mind for trying and failing several different ways to try and fix her, and he was less than ten percent of the way towards being able to get back into the Vortex again. Frustrated, bored and his brain frazzled, it dawned on him that he really needed to get some kind of job as he kept having to resort to eating all of the meals he'd left in the back of the kitchen cupboards for a good reason and none of them tasted good in the slightest.
He hated the idea of shop work, being in an office sounded like it would bore the hell out of him, and all he could come up with was teaching. He'd really enjoyed it back when he was travelling with Mickey and Rose, and before that he'd taught a few times at the Academy on Gallifrey, plus teaching a subject like one of the sciences could be a doddle for him. All he needed to do was flash around the psychic paper a bit and he could get into one of the local secondary schools around here.
Eventually, he got an interview and, much to his delight, landed himself a job as a temporary chemistry teacher at a school a five minute walk away.
On his very first morning, he strolled into reception just about on time and took a seat outside the headteacher's office, waiting to go inside and discuss the details of the classes he'd be teaching. He got so wrapped up in his own thoughts about the day ahead of him that he didn't even notice the woman taking the seat beside him.
