Disclaimer: Don't own anything, but especially the dialogue at the end which is from the episode Rise of the Cybermen from Series 2. Just a little filling in between eps.

AN: This could be construed as something-but-not-really of a sequel to Rule One, which I wrote exactly a year ago. This one is all Ten/Rose/Mickey and is post Girl in the Fireplace. By which I mean, this takes place directly following the end of that episode and goes until the beginning of Rise of the Cybermen.

He'd said he was fine. Rose, of course, knew better. She also knew he wasn't going to talk about it and so she should just pretend everything was fine, because he preferred it that way. So she did. Except that it wasn't. Nothing was even remotely fine.

She didn't want Mickey here, but she couldn't say that. She was both mad that the Doctor had returned to save Reinette and understanding that he'd had to too. She was sad that he was clearly upset over what she assumed must be Reinette's death. She was also slightly annoyed that he'd brushed off his feelings so easily. The woman had deserved more than that. Everyone did.

She'd shown Mickey the kitchen and then the wardrobe, but Rose was quickly losing interest in playing tour guide. 'You tired?' she asked.

Mickey shrugged. 'Yeah, guess so. Why, are you?'

'A bit,' she admitted. She was, but not for the reasons that Mickey would be. She was used to the life and death situations. 'Here's a bedroom, I think.' She stopped them in front of one door of many along the corridor. She knew hers was across the hall and two down because she could see the twinning roses carved in the wood reflecting in the light. She opened the door. 'Yep, this'll do, yeah?'

Mickey ventured in a few steps. The room was spacious, but plain. As hers had been when she'd first run into the TARDIS so long ago. 'Do for tonight, at least. Can find you another tomorrow if you'd rather.'

Mickey seemed to take that in. 'Yeah, sure.' Another, he thought, but not yours.

'Well, night then. I'm just down the hall if you need anything. Can you find the kitchen again?' He probably couldn't, but he nodded anyways. 'See you tomorrow, or whenever. Bit timeless in here,' she smiled slightly.

'Yeah. Night Rose.' He watched her turn and walk down the corridor, passing every door, and then turn the corner. 'Right.' Sighing, Mickey shut the door.

Rose wandered down to the kitchen, mind elsewhere. She made two cups of tea more out of habit then because she actually wanted one. But she sipped one idly once it was done brewing and carried the other with her as she set off for the console room.

He was standing right where she'd left him. He'd taken the tan overcoat off and thrown it over its usual strut. She held out the mug to him silently. He glanced up, startled momentarily, but took it just as silently. He didn't drink it though; just wrapped his fingers around it as though seeking the warmth.

'Mickey's gone to sleep. Found him a room,' she said. The silence was becoming deafening.

'Good. That's good.'

'I was thinking someplace nice, yeah?' He looked at her quizzically. 'For tomorrow. Someplace without monsters or running and stuff. A break?' She quarried.

'Sure. Quiet. I can do that.'

'Thanks,' she smiled. 'I'm gonna go to bed.' He didn't respond to this. 'You gonna stay here all night?'

'What? Oh, um, don't know. Got some work to do,' he glanced down to the grating under their feet.

'Right. But maybe you should sleep, yeah? Just for a bit. You haven't slept for days.'

'No, I…wait, how do you know I haven't slept?' He turned fully to face her, setting the mug hazardously on the console.

Rose looked awkwardly at him. 'Um, she might have…that is, she might have told me.'

The Doctor stared. 'She told you? Just like that?' He was clearly disbelieving.

'Yes. She does that, sometimes. If it's, you know, important.' She paused. 'Sorry. Is that like, invading your privacy or something?'

'No, well yes, but that's not…no. I'm just…surprised. She doesn't usually – talk – to anyone except me. How long has she…?'

'Since, well, Christmas. Since you…changed. I thought maybe it had something to do with that, yeah?' She asked hesitantly. It had honestly been such a gradual thing she hadn't really noticed it per se.

'Oh. That. That explains it, I suppose. She's just never…oh well. Might come in handy, I suppose.' That seemed to be the end of that conversation.

Rose took another sip of cooling tea. The Doctor had his attention back on the consol, flipping a switch there, and another here. She knew she should probably just say goodnight and go to bed, but… 'So are you? Going to sleep, I mean.'

The Doctor sighed. 'Yes. I'll…yes. And so should you. Go to bed, Rose.' He smiled at her for the first time since he'd come back through that fireplace. 'Night.'

'Yeah, night Doctor.' She returned the smile. At the doorway to the corridor she turned back to look at him. He was leaning against the bench once more, mind elsewhere. He said fine, but Rose knew it was going to be a while before that was really true.

It was still early when Rose dragged herself from bed the next day. Her clock said it was seven hours later than it had been when she crawled into bed, which meant pretty much nothing. She hadn't slept well at all, and she was willing to bet she wasn't the only one on the ship.

Still pulling her mind from the haze that over exhaustion and little rest bring to the average human, she showered in barely warm water in an attempt to wake herself up and – when that inevitably failed; cold water can't cure lack of sleep – she dragged herself down to the kitchen to make a strong pot of coffee.

Except it had already been made, and mostly drunk.

'Coffee whore, this morning, are you?' was all she could manage. The Doctor didn't acknowledge he'd even heard her.

'Right,' she sighed and poured herself a cup, drowning it in sugar and then downing it as fast as the still hot liquid would allow. She poured the last of it from the pot and contemplated if she was tired enough to make more. 'Breakfast?' she asked, with the air of someone who knows they're talking to themselves.

Rose had long since learned how to use the food generator on the ship. She didn't need to often, because they usually found food on whatever planet or space station they were on, but breakfast was usually on the TARDIS. The breakfast bars the ship produced weren't great to look at, but if she closed her eyes, Rose had to admit it tasted pretty much like porridge with fruit and sugar. The Doctor had told it was healthier too.

Cooling coffee in one hand and bar in the other, she sat down across from her oblivious companion. He was staring at a point five degrees to her left. She stared right at him as she ate.

'So,' she mumbled around a mouthful of oatmeal and strawberry flavor, 'are we going to have a conversation today, maybe, or will there be silence in the library?'

He blinked.

'Right, well, this be a good time to tell you I want Mickey gone, then?'

'Wha?' he half choked the word as he jolted his eyes to face hers.

'Mickey? Gone? Earth? Preferably.'

'You wanted him to come along!' The Doctor bore the usual look of complete confusion when his companion did something he just couldn't understand.

'Yeah, like, a year ago, before it was, you know, us.' She emphasized the last word with just enough inflection she hoped he'd get the meaning.

He choked again. 'Us, yes, us. Because last year there wasn't only…'us'?

'Don't be thick,' she snapped. 'You know what I meant. Anyways, he's just tagging along now, like Adam. He was next to useless on that ship, and don't pretend you didn't think it! Look, I told him a beach or something next, to make up for nearly dying, but then it's back to Earth, yeah?.' He'd been promising her a beach for weeks.

'Well, okay then. That's what you want.'

'That's what I want.'

'Earth then.'

'Yeah and,' she started to add as he made for the door, coffee cup abandoned still full on the table, 'make it right after we left. If you can.

'Course I can,' he snapped at her as he disappeared out the door.

It was nearly an hour later when she trailed into the console room with Mickey. Getting him up in the morning has always been an ordeal, but the beds on the TARDIS are pretty damn comfy and prying him from the guest room had been a lesson in futility until she'd come back with a cup of coffee.

He hadn't been at all impressed by the ship's version of breakfast either, and was still complaining about it.

'Need proper food! Eggs and bacon and bready stuff. Bread, Rose, it's like, important! Flavoured health bars are not proper food!'

'Right, ready?' the Doctor interrupted. Mickey stared at him.

'What have you been feeding her, ay? Humans need food and all you got is protein bars!'

'I hardly think she's suffering from malnutrition, Mickey. Rose seems perfectly healthy to me. Healthier then you, I'd hazard to guess.' Rose stifled the grin that threatened to decorate her face as Mickey gapped at him.

'I am not –' but Rose didn't really want him to finish that sentence. 'We're ready. Got my bathing suit on too!' she pronounced, just in case he'd forgotten about the beach.

'Jommona, thirty-first century, best beaches in the system.'

'Which system is that,' she asked, as the TARDIS groaned.

'Andromeda!' the Doctor exclaimed, in his first display of excitement since they'd been on the space ship and Reinette had been alive. The TARDIS gave a loud groan and stilled.

Grinning despite the fact she knew that things were still not okay, Rose made a beeline for the doors.

Bright sun and nothing as far as the eye could see but white sand and blue waters greeted her. Rose had never been more happy that the Doctor (and the TARDIS) had gotten it right this time. Mickey poked a head out behind her with trepidation.

'You sure the sand ain't full of bugs or something? Alligators in the water?'

'Alligators do not live in salt water, Mickey,' the Doctor patiently explained. 'Now, I've got work to do, so you two go…play. Back in here by sundown!' he called as Rose dashed for the water. And then he slammed the TARDIS door in Mickey's face.

'Come on, Mick! It's so warm!' Rose called, already up to her knees in the gentle surf. Mickey, ever the dutiful boyfriend, trailed off to join her.

Sundown might have been an hour or ten hours away, but the sun didn't seem inclined to move in the sky as the time ticked away. Rose swam for a while and then lay down on the sand to catch some sun. Mickey, who had only ever been to English beaches, which weren't the most pleasant thing to lay on, walked up and down along the water. After a while he realized that Rose had actually fallen asleep. He wondered if she'd slept the night before after she claimed she was so tired. What, did she spend the whole night up talking to him?

Rose was still sleeping when hunger began to knag. He nudged her awake with a foot, which she promptly met with one of her own. 'Go 'way,' she muttered.

'Lunch time, Rose. And if there ain't no real food on that ship, suppose I'll eat one of those protein bars.'

Rose sighed, but sat up. 'Always thinking about your stomach, Mickey. We're on a gorgeous beach on some distant planet and nothing is trying to kill us. Enjoy it.'

'I would if my stomach wasn't rumbling every minute.' As if in answer, said stomach chose exactly that moment to let out a particularly loud moan.

'Fine,' she muttered. Getting up, Rose when over to the TARDIS. 'Be back in a 'mo,' she said, by which she clearly meant 'stay here'.

Mickey sat down on her abandoned towel while she was gone. He didn't get what was going on. Clearly, Rose didn't want him around, and either did the Doctor. He should probably just ask to be returned to the Powell Estate. Being the third wheel was never enjoyable and he didn't relish another near-death experience on some alien space craft.

'Right, food,' Rose plopped down beside him. 'Turkey sandwiches…or near enough,' she handed over a brown looking bar. 'They're not bad; just don't look at it while you eat.' She bit into her own without flinching, so Mickey figured it was worth a try. Or at least, his stomach figured it.

It didn't really taste like a turkey sandwich, but it wasn't awful either. They chewed away in silence.

When he was done, Rose handed over a strangely shaped bottle of what he hoped was water. 'Lemon flavoured,' she proudly exclaimed. He took a hesitant sip.

'Tastes like that water you get in nice restaurants, I think. Has some vitamins and stuff in it, the Doctor says.'

Well, if The Doctor says. Mickey was so tired of hearing that.

'I wanna go home, Rose.'

She was silent for a few minutes too long. Some part of him had hoped he'd imagined it: that she still wanted him around.

'It's not the nearly dying part. But you and he, you don't want me around, I get that. I'm just the tag along to a couple now. I want no part of that. And he…'

'He what?' Rose said.

'He…He's just like pretending everything's great! She's dead and he don't even care! He's got no feelings Rose, and you're all hanging on him like you love him or something! He ain't ever going to be a boyfriend, haven't you figured that out?'

'Oh, I got it figured out Mickey. The Doctor and me, we aren't like that, because he doesn't do that. But just travelling with him's enough for me, Mick. Seeing the universe together; that's more important than boyfriend-girlfriend or needin' sex. Don't you get it? He's alien, Mickey. He doesn't feel like us or think like us, because he's not like us. You can't expect him to be. But he grieved for Reinette in his own way, and he loved her in his own way, no more or less than he loves me. He loves everyone, Mick, that's his problem, and when he loses them it hurts. He's so old and he's lost so many people. But I won't let him lose me. I make him happy, I know I do, and if it's only for a bit, that's better than nothing.'

'Yeah, well, that's what you want. Tell him to take me back.'

Rose sighed and stared out at the water. 'I already did.'

Mickey couldn't say he was surprised. She'd probably stayed up to tell him that last night after she'd sent him to bed.

'Just wanted a little break first. Figured you deserved a rest after what happened yesterday.'

'Thanks,' he said, but both of them knew he didn't mean it.

'Suppose we can go back. He's not really working; well, not on anything important. Another hour or two, he'll be done fiddling and we'll get you back. He said it'd be the same night we left.' Whether she was convinced this was true or not was hard to say, but Mickey vividly remembered the twelve months the last him had been late. Not that there was anything Mickey could do about it either way.

Rose shook the sand from the towel and then opened the door for him. After the blinding sun, it was nearly dark inside. The Doctor was flat out on the floor leaning over a hole in the grating, 'fiddling' as Rose called it.

'Too hot out, Doctor; hope you don't mind we came back in. Water's beautiful though.'

'Good,' was all he said for a moment as he fiddling with a tangle of wires. Something sparked and he sat back up on his heels. 'Need another hour to finish this; been putting it off too long. Then we'll go.'

'Mind if we stay here?' Rose asked.

The Doctor just shrugged so Rose took a seat on the captain's chair anyways and beckoned Mickey over. Since there was nowhere else to sit and he was pretty sure he'd be lost in about ten seconds if he went wandering, he sat down beside his now firmly ex-girlfriend.

The silence stretched.

'You know, I got a space craft my first trip too,' Rose suddenly announced, a little too loudly.

'Yeah?' Mickey said. He didn't want to hear stories about all her adventures she'd been on while he'd waited at home for her, but listening to her talk was better than uncomfortable silence.

'Yeah, this satellite thing, orbiting Earth. It was there to watch the sun explode and swallow the planet.'

That perked his attention. 'The sun's gonna explode?'

'Oh, not for years. Billions of years, but when it does all these rich people are gonna come and watch it. And the Doctor and me,' she smiled around the console at the floor where a pair of Converse could just be seen pocking out of the grating. 'There were all these aliens there, from all over. These people who looked like trees; there leader was Jade. And this little blue guy who hovered on a chair. Oh, and Cassandra.'

'Who?' he asked, despite himself.

'She was 'the last human', she called herself. She'd had so many surgeries she wasn't anything more than a strip of skin tacked onto a frame with lips and eyes. Huge ego, wasn't she, Doctor?'

A grunt followed by a bang echoed from the other side of the console.

'Who?' came the Doctor's voice, followed by the Doctor.

'Cassandra.'

'Oh, Cassandra. Glad she's gone.'

'Gone,' Mickey asked…again.

'Oh, we just met her, right before we met Sarah Jane. She was at this hospital on New Earth, just after the Earth got roasted. She tried to kill me, again.' Rose said this with an air of pride.

'Yeah, nearly succeeded too,' the Doctor said, 'but we did away with her once and for all. No one should live that long,' he added, with a strange look on his face. 'Mickey, press this for me,' he pointed at a button on the console. Without thinking, Mickey got up to do just that and the Doctor took his seat on the bench.

'And we met Queen Victoria a bit back. The real Queen Victoria. In Scotland,' Rose attempted to break the pall that had fallen over the Doctor's face again. The ploy worked.

'Oh, she was wonderful, wasn't she? Banned us from the British Empire at the end, even though we saved her life, but what can you do? At least she knighted us first!'

'Yep,' Rose added. 'I'm Dame Rose! Isn't that cool?'

Mickey nodded, because he was obviously supposed to. He continued to nod as the Doctor and Rose, tag-teaming, related the entire sordid tale of werewolves and strange monks and British royalty.

'And then,' Rose said between gales of laughter, 'she said 'We are not amused'! Can you believe it?'

'No,' Mickey acknowledged, although it was clear there was no reason not to.

Rose laughed again. 'And then, just last week, right before you called we landed in the weirdest place yet.

'Definitely the strangest I've seen in years of travelling,' the Doctor confirmed.

'It was supposed to be a vacation,' Rose commented dryly. The Doctor had the grace to blush.

'But much more fun! Come on, admit it!'

'Suppose so,' she grinned.

'There was this dwarf and we kind of landed on his house. Not on purpose, but well, accidents happen,' he shrugged. 'And he just started jabbering away at us so fast I couldn't even say I was sorry! And then all these people start coming out of nowhere and start in on us as well. 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 firecomes out!'

Rose gulps back a gale of laughter. 'I thought I was gonna get frazzled!'

'Yeah! One minute she's standing there, and the next minute - rawwwh!' The Doctor mimed what Mickey assumed was a very small woman turning into a fire breathing dragon. Rose, in the midst of a new round of laughter, followed suit.

Mickey decided to play along. 'Yeah... where-- where was that, then? What happened?'

The laughter instantly subsided. 'Oh, it was on this um... uh, this uh... planet thing, asteroid. It's a long story, you had to be there. Um... what're you doing that for?'

Mickey glanced down at the button he was pressing. ''Cos you told me to…'

The Doctor blinked. 'When was that?'

'About half an hour ago…' Mickey guessed.

'Um. You can let go now.'

Mickey let go, suspicious. 'Well, how long's it been since I could've stopped?' he asked, already worried he knew the answer.

'Ten minutes?' The Doctor looked uncomfortable. 'Twenty?…Twenty-nine?' Rose wasn't smiling anymore either.

'You just forgot me!'

The Doctor looked suitably horrified. 'No, no, no! I was just-- I was just... I was calibrating. I was just... no, I know exactlywhat I'm doing.'

The entire ship pitched to one side as the console exploded.