Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Ten The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Nine ( Chapter 9 )

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When Mickey woke up, it was fair to say that he was a little disorientated. Firstly, he'd been dreaming that he and Rose had been out on a Saturday night, like they used to, not that long ago. Secondly, he could smell the Sunday morning fry up that she always did when she stayed over.

So, when he opened his eyes and saw that he wasn't in his flat, but in a hotel room, he had to try and remember the previous day's events, and where he'd ended up.

`Mmmm, Rose?' he said sleepily, and then it came back to him, he was on the TARDIS, and she'd been making up with the Doctor, finishing with a hug outside her bedroom, before he took her inside. Well, that burst his bubble and put his dream firmly in the realm of fantasy.

He'd known it for months now, and didn't want to believe it, and now, even when he believed it, he didn't want to admit it. Rose loved him, but she wasn't IN love with him, not anymore, not like he was, and he knew that if she came and said 'Mickey, I've been a fool again', he'd have her back like a shot.

He climbed out of bed, and in his boxer shorts, found the en suite shower. He enjoyed the perfect temperature shower, and the drying air jets had him in fits of laughter. He went back into the bedroom and investigated some of the draws, where he found clean boxers and socks that fit him perfectly.

`I don't think anyone will mind if I borrow some clean underwear,' he said to himself, and set off to find the source of the wonderful smell.

`Mickety-Mick,' the Doctor said, as he walked into the kitchen, holding his fist up for a `bump'. `How did you sleep?'

`Amazin' actually, it was so comfortable in that room,' he said.

Rose smiled at him. `That's the TARDIS, she gets in yer head and relaxes ya . . . ; I love it. D'ya want a fry up?'

`Hell yeah, I'm starvin'.' He sat down at the table, while Rose got up and went to the counter first and poured him a mug of tea before going to the cooker and putting his fry up on a plate.

`There ya go mate,' she said as she put them on the table in front of him.

`Hah! Just like old times, eh Babe?' he said with a grin. Rose looked a bit awkward, not really knowing how to react.

Mickey saw her expression and smiled at her. `Hey, c'mon Rose, we had some good times, didn't we? Ya can't deny that. Ooh, I'm gonna miss your fry ups.'

Rose looked at him, studying his face, as she realised what he had just said. He had moved on, he was telling her that he had moved on, but they were still mates. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand, as her eyes became moist with tears.

`Mickey, any time you want a fry up, you just give me a call, yeah?'

Mickey grinned at her, putting a fork full in his mouth. `I'll hold ya to that.'

The Doctor smiled at them, happy that these two friends had finally come to their senses and worked out their differences, and they were different, which was good, `vive le difference'.

`So, did ya do this fry up in the replicator then?' Mickey asked as he had a swig of his tea.

The Doctor answered that one. `No, it was all Rose, and can I just say that I agree with you on her fry up's, they're the best,' he said with a big smile. `You can let the replicator do it, or you can just replicate the raw ingredients, and cook it yourself.'

`Mmmm, definitely cooked for me,' Mickey said.

`Is that all you boys want me for, my fry ups?' she joked. After the heart to heart she'd had with both of them, she was more relaxed and confident with her place on the TARDIS.

`No, of course not,' Mickey said.

`No, you make a mean cup of tea as well,' the Doctor said with a grin.

`Shut up,' Rose laughed, giving him a playful slap on his shoulder.

`Oh, an' I need ya to cut me hair,' Mickey said cheekily. `Actually, do you have any hair trimmers on board? I could do with a trim.'

`There are some in the Medi-Bay,' the Doctor told them, and saw their expressions. `Don't ask.'

`Okay, I'll give you a cut after breakfast,' she told him, and then turned to the Doctor `So, what's the plan for today then?'

`While we're in the Vortex, I'd like to update the galaxy maps. Because the universe is expanding, the TARDIS has to regularly compensate for the movements of the galaxies.'

`Okay,' Rose said. `Can we help you with that?'

`That would certainly speed things up, thanks. I'll go and make a start, and you can come through when you've finished shearing Mickey.' He stood and left the kitchen, going through to the console room.

In the Medi-Bay, Rose had got Mickey in an examination chair, and tilted it backwards so the hair didn't go down his collar.

`So, how short do ya want it? I mean, it's short as it is,' she said as she picked up the cordless trimmer.

`A number one, all over.'

`Blimey, that is short!'

`Well, it's time I left the past behind and made a fresh start, y'know, a new image.'

Rose set the cut to one, and switched the trimmers on. `About that Mickey . . . I'm sorry for the way things have worked out . . . the way I've treated ya.'

`Hey, don't go beatin' yerself up Rose; I should 'ave seen it comin' ages ago, when ya took off with that wanker Jimmy. It's like y'were always lookin' to do somethin' with yer life, where as me, I was happy just to go down the pub, watch football, and fix cars.'

`Yeah, but I thought when I'd found what I was lookin' for, you'd be there with me.'

`I must admit when you called me from Cardiff, I thought things weren't goin' well for ya and that you wanted us to get back together.'

`Ah, yeah . . . sorry about how that went an' all,' she said sheepishly as she guided the humming trimmer over his head.

Mickey laughed at the memory. `An' then when Captain Flash opened the door, I wondered what the hell was goin' on.'

Rose laughed with him at the memory, and the name 'Captain Flash', it reminded her of 'Flash Heart' from Blackadder and how Jack could have been the inspiration for that character.

`I think you were more Jack's type than me,' she said with a smirk. `There ya go, all done.'

She sat the chair up and dusted his shoulders with a soft brush. `Blimey, it don't 'alf make ya look different.'

`Really?' he said with a grin. `Good different, or bad different?' He'd forgotten that the 'new' Doctor had asked her that exact same question when he'd woken up from his regeneration.

Rose smiled at the memory and gently stroked his cheek. `Good . . . more rugged and mature.'

`Rugged and mature,' he said puffing out his chest like a proud peacock. `Yer never know, maybe I'll pull some cute alien bird while we're out here,' he said, grinning initially, but then frowning in thought. `There again, I don't fancy havin' kids with green skin and four arms. Can yer imagine; it's bad enough when they've only got two?'

Rose laughed, but she realised that Mickey had been thinking like that about them, settling down, and having a family. She felt guilty that it wasn't for her, not yet, not now that she knew that there was so much out there, and there was a man who could give her what she longed for.

`C'mon then, let's go an' see what the Doctor's up to,' she said, holding out her hand for him.

Mickey looked at her offered hand and smiled. Taking her hand, he realised their love for each other was like siblings now, rather than lovers. They went and joined the Doctor at the console, where he was studying the display screen, and making adjustments to the controls.

`Ah, right, there you are. Rose, if you could go over there and get ready to hold down that lever. Mickey, see that button? Hold your finger on it.'

As the universe expanded, the galaxies moved away from each other, and the Doctor was mapping those movements, storing the data in the galaxy maps with the button Mickey was holding down.

`So what kind of things do you get up to when you're travellin?' Mickey asked to pass the time.

`Oh, all sorts,' Rose said, and proceeded to recount their adventures so far, occasionally interrupted by the Doctor asking her to push the lever up and then down again.

` . . . . And of course, you remember Margaret the Slitheen, the TARDIS turned her into an egg and we took her home,' Rose said before carrying on with her narrative.

When she got to the Queen Victoria story, Mickey's jaw dropped. `You're kiddin' me, a real, live werewolf? And you were knighted?'

`Yeah, I know, how crazy is that?' Rose laughed.

They carried on chatting, and Mickey was so enthralled by their stories that he didn't pay any attention when the Doctor and Rose sat on the jump seats.

`And that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember? The way she looked at you! And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out!' the Doctor said with a laugh.

`I thought I was going to get frazzled!' she laughed with him.

`Yeah, one minute she's standing there, and the next minute . . .'

` . . . .Roar!' they said together, laughing.

`Yeah, where was that, then? What happened?' Mickey asked, smiling at the fun that they'd had.

`Oh, it was on this er, this er, planet thing, asteroid, it's a long story, you had to be there.' He noticed that Mickey was holding down the button on the console. `Er, what're you doing that for?'

`Because you told me to,' Mickey said.

`When was that?'

`About half an hour ago.'

`Erm . . . you can let go now,' the Doctor said sheepishly. Mickey took his finger off the button and it went `bloop'. Rose started giggling.

`Well, how long's it been since I could've stopped?'

`Ten minutes . . . ? Twenty . . . ? Twenty nine?'

`You just forgot me!' Mickey said angrily.

`No, no, no. I was just . . . I was . . . I was calibrating. I was just . . . . No, I know exactly what I'm doing.'

`BOOM!' The console exploded in a flash of light and plumes of smoke, and the group were thrown to the floor. They picked themselves up and clung on to the console.

`What's happened?' Rose asked.

`The Time Vortex is gone. That's impossible, it's just gone,' the Doctor said, trying to compensate with the controls. `Brace yourself! We're going to crash!'

The TARDIS slammed into the ground, and threw them to the floor, all the lights went out, and the console fell silent.

`Everyone all right? Rose? Mickey?'

`I'm fine,' Mickey said. `I'm okay. Sorry. Yeah.

The Doctor looked up at the rotor. `She's dead . . . . The TARDIS is dead.'

`You can fix it?' Rose asked as though it was a statement of fact.

`There's nothing to fix . . . she's perished,' he said as he circled the console. `The last TARDIS in the universe, extinct,' he said sadly.

`We can get help, yeah?' she said.

`Where from?' the Doctor asked her.

`Well, we've landed. We've got to be somewhere,' she said.

Mickey moved away from the console and walked down the ramp.

`We fell out of the Vortex, through the Void, into nothingness,' he said, his voice went quiet and thoughtful. `We're in some sort of no place . . . . The silent realm . . . . The lost dimension.'

`Otherwise known as London,' Mickey said from the door, stepping outside. `London, England, Earth.'

The Doctor and Rose stepped out onto a grassy bank, with Lambeth Palace behind them, and the Thames in front. Mickey jumped down onto the pavement. `Hold on,' he said, picking up a newspaper. `First of February this year not exactly far flung, is it?'

`So this is London?' the Doctor asked.

`Yep,' Mickey said with a grin.

`Your city?'

`That's the one.'

`Just as we left it?'

`Bang on.'

The Doctor looked up. `And that includes the Zeppelins?'

`What the hell?' Mickey and Rose looked up, open mouthed, watching Zeppelin airships passing overhead.

`That's beautiful,' Rose said in amazement.

Mickey tried to make sense of it. `Okay, so it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival.'

`This is not your world,' the Doctor told them.

Mickey quickly caught on, he'd seen Star Trek. `But if the date's the same, it's parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they've got Zeppelins. Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?'

`Must be,' the Doctor agreed.

`So, a parallel world where?' Rose asked.

Mickey understood it. `Oh, come on. You've seen it on films. Like an alternative to our world where everything's the same but a little bit different, like, I don't know, traffic lights are blue; Tony Blair never got elected . . .'

`And he's still alive.' Rose was staring at an advert for Vitex Lite, it was cherry flavour. Rose remembered seeing the name Vitex on large containers in her parents flat when she had gone back to see . . . the man in the advert, her father, Pete Tyler. `A parallel world and my dad's still alive.'

She walked over to the advert to get a better look, the Doctor and Mickey followed her. `Don't look at it, Rose. Don't even think about it. This is not your world,' the Doctor told her.

`But he's my dad and . . .' She reached out and touched the advert, which activated it and an animated Pete Tyler puts his thumb up and says `Trust me on this'.

`Well, that's weird,' she said. `But he's real.'

`Trust me on this,' the advert said.

`He's a success. He was always planning these daft little schemes, health food, drinks, and stuff, everyone said they were useless, but he did it.'

The Doctor grabbed her by her arms and turned her away from the electronic advert. `Rose, if you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now. Stop looking at it. Your father's dead, he died when you were six months old. That is not `your' Pete; that is `a' Pete. For all we know, he's got his own Jackie, his own Rose, his own daughter who is someone else, but not you. You can't see him. Not ever.'

The advert spoke as if to reinforce the Doctor's words. `Trust me on this. Trust me on this . . . . Trust me on this . . . . Trust me on this . . .

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Mickey managed to land Lumic's Zeppelin in Kennington Park, and the Doctor, Pete Tyler and Jake Simmonds, jumped out to tie the mooring ropes to trees and railings. Mickey and Jake went back to Battersea, to pick up the Preachers van, while the Doctor, Rose, and Pete headed for Lambeth Pier and the TARDIS.

Pete and Rose were standing on Lambeth Palace Road, outside the TARDIS; she was still wearing the maids outfit. The Doctor was inside, plugging in the power cell.

`So, what happens inside that thing, then?' Pete asked her.

`Do you want to see?' she asked, hoping that if he saw the inside, she could convince him to stay.

`No, I don't think so,' he said hesitantly. `But you two . . . you know . . . all that stuff you said about different worlds . . . who are you?'

`It's like you say . . . Imagine there are . . . different worlds . . . parallel worlds. Worlds with another Pete Tyler and Jackie Tyler's still alive . . . and their daughter.'

Pete started to look uncomfortable as Rose looked at him longingly.

`I've got to go,' he said quickly.

`But if you just look inside,' she pleaded.

`Nah, I can't. There's all those Lumic factories out there. All those Cybermen still in storage. Someone's got to tell the authorities what happened, carry on the fight . . .'

The door of the TARDIS opened and the Doctor stepped out, jogging towards them. `Rose? I've only got five minutes of power. We've got to go.'

`The Doctor could show you,' Rose said, desperate for her `father' to go with them in the TARDIS.

`Thank you . . . for everything,' he said.

Rose couldn't hold back any more. `Dad.'

That was too much for him. `Don't. Just, just don't,' he said and quickly walked away, looking back, one last time, before disappearing into the night at a run.

Mickey and Jake walked towards them from the road, where they had parked the van. Rose didn't really see them coming, she was upset that the man who looked like her father, wouldn't even entertain the idea that she could be his daughter in another universe.

`Here it is. I found it. Not a crease,' Mickey said, handing over familiar, folded, brown clothing.

`My suit! Good man. Now then, Jake, we've got to run. But one more thing . . . Mrs Moore, her real name was Angela Price. She's got a husband out there, and children. Find them. Tell them how she died saving the world,' the Doctor ordered.

`Yeah, course I will,' he said with a boyish grin.

`Off we go, then,' the Doctor said cheerfully.

Mickey hesitated. `Er . . . thing is, I'm staying.'

The Doctor was gob smacked. `You're doing what?'

`You can't,' Rose said quietly. She'd just been rejected by a man who, to all intents and purpose, was her father, and now, her best friend was leaving her.

Mickey had been thinking about this since he met the double of his grandmother, Rita Anne Smith. In his world, she had tripped on a piece of loose carpet, and fallen down the stairs to her death. He always blamed himself for that, after she had been badgering him to repair the carpet, and he never did.

`It sort of balances out,' Mickey said, his voice full of emotion. `Because this world lost it's Ricky, but there's me. And there's work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there.'

`But you can't stay,' Rose told him, her voice breaking, tears welling in her eyes.

`Rose, my gran's here . . . she's still alive . . . my old gran, remember her?

`Yeah,' she squeaked.

`She needs me.'

`What about me? What if I need you?' she cried.

`Yeah, but Rose, you don't . . .' He looked pointedly at the Doctor, almost accusingly. `It's just you and him, isn't it . . . ? We had something a long time ago, but not anymore.' They'd had this conversation yesterday morning, they'd moved on.

`Well, we'll come back . . . we can travel anywhere. Come and see you, yeah?' she said, looking to the Doctor for reassurance, but she got none.

`We can't,' he said sadly. `I told you, travel between parallel worlds is impossible . . . We only got here by accident, we . . . we fell through a crack in time, when we leave, I've got to close it . . . we can't ever return.'

The realisation of that suddenly hit Mickey, and he looked at his heartbroken, ex girlfriend. He'd made his decision, and maybe a clean break was for the best. There would be no chance of bumping into her and stirring up old memories, old feelings.

`Doctor,' he said, holding out his hand for the Doctor to shake.

`Take Rose's phone, it's got the code. Get it out there, stop those factories,' he said seriously as he shook his hand. They stood there for a long moment, exchanging a look of understanding. `And good luck . . . Mickey the idiot,' he said with a smile and a friendly tap on the cheek.

`Watch it,' Mickey said with a smile.

The Doctor glanced at Rose and back at Mickey, they needed to say a proper goodbye, so he turned and went into the TARDIS. They watched him go inside and then turned to face one another.

`Thanks,' Mickey said. `We've had a laugh though, haven't we . . . ? Seen it all, been there and back. Who would have thought, me and you off the old estate, flying through the stars.'

`All those years just sitting there, imagining what we'd do one day,' she cried. `We never saw this, did we?'

Mickey blinked back tears, he was a bloke, and he couldn't let her see him cry, so he grabbed her in one last hug. `Go on, don't miss your flight.'

Rose on the other hand, didn't care, she sobbed as she realised that she would never see him again. Without looking up, she slowly walked back to the TARDIS with a heavy heart. At the door, she took one last look at the man who was once her lover, and now, her best friend, before going in and closing the door on him for the last time.

She walked up the ramp and straight into the Doctor's arms, where she sobbed on his shoulder.

`Hey . . . hey,' he said as he rubbed her back comfortingly. `Mickey's all right, it's a whole new world, new opportunities . . . a new life.' He pulled down the lever, and the time rotor started pumping up and down.

`Can I go home?' Rose asked quietly, and the Doctor froze. What was she asking? Did she just want to go home, or did she really WANT to go home?

She felt him tense up, and after the last few days, with all the turmoil of her emotions, and the misunderstandings, he must think that Mickey was the final straw. She pulled away slightly so that she could wipe the tears from her cheeks with her hand and look at his face.

`Just to see Mum,' she whispered. `I need to see Mum . . . to make sure she's all right, y'know, after seeing that Jackie . . .' Tears started to flow again.

`Of course . . . let's go and get changed out of these outfits, and then I'll set the coordinates.' Rose grabbed him into a hug again, and they just stood there, sharing a comforting embrace.