It was the morning right after they had returned from Madame de Pompadour's ship. Rose, Mickey and the Doctor were in high spirits, joking and laughing in the TARDIS's kitchen.
"Really, though," Mickey laughed in between off-beat sips of his coffee, "All that time spent travelling around with beautiful women and you never once—"
"No!" The Doctor repeated, a slightly outraged expression on his face, "I take people along to show them how vast and majestic the universe is, not because I fancy them!"
"Could've fooled me," Mickey muttered. His eyes flitted across the kitchen table to where Rose was enjoying her toast. The Doctor followed his gaze and then blushed ever so slightly.
"Rose," he said, trying to cover the small moment of embarrassment, "You have friends who are blokes, don't you?"
Rose looked up from her food with a bemused expression on her face. "Yeah," she said with a wary playfulness in her eye, "Why?"
"In all the time that you were friends with said blokes, have you ever felt the need to make a move on any of them?" He lifted an eyebrow skeptically at Mickey as if to say that, by having Rose weigh in, the argument was basically already won.
Rose made to answer and then hesitated slightly. She regained her resolve, however, and answered with confidence.
"No," she told him, "I usually steer clear of any romantic involvement with friends."
"So there," the Doctor said satisfactorily, effectively settling the argument like a five-year-old.
Mickey gaped at Rose incredulously.
"You're full of it!" He finally told her with a disbelieving laugh, "I mean, just taking me into account alone!"
"Yeah, but I always sort of fancied you," Rose told him, smiling cheekily with her tongue sticking out of a gap between her teeth, "You should've known that I had ulterior motives from the start."
Mickey tried not to let the smile get to him too much. The Doctor was doing much of the same.
"Then there's the obvious," Mickey ploughed on, jerking his head towards the Doctor.
This action resulted in both the Doctor and Rose averting their gazes embarrassedly and blushing profusely. Mickey allowed himself a moment of silent amusement at this; Even though he didn't exactly support his girlfriend (if she was even still that) fancying someone else, he had to admit that their acting like two awkward teenagers around each other was a great source of entertainment for him.
"And then there was Jimmy," he continued down the list absently.
Rose's face instantly became ashen. Mickey realised his mistake and a wave of guilt lurched through his stomach. He hadn't meant to mention that. They sat for a moment staring at each other in silence, Rose looking as if she had been dealt a slap across the face.
The Doctor's concern for Rose abruptly flared up upon seeing the look on her face. "Rose?" he asked worriedly, staring from one tense person to the other, "You alright?"
"Yeah," she said, standing up so hastily from the table that her cutlery clanged noisily to the floor. Her breakfast was still uneaten for the most part.
She smiled at the Doctor reassuringly, but the smile didn't quite touch her eyes. "I'm going to go—get dressed."
With that she hurried from the kitchen, leaving the Doctor staring after her with a confused expression on his face and Mickey guiltily staring at the floor.
The Doctor turned on Mickey, his face suddenly all-business.
"Who's Jimmy?" He asked.
Mickey shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably, not wanting to meet the Doctor's eyes.
"I don't think it's my business to tell you," he said awkwardly. Rose obviously didn't want the Doctor to know about her and Jimmy.
"Mickey," the Doctor prompted.
Something in the way his two companions were acting was making him uneasy. Additionally, he liked to have knowledge of the things that upset Rose so that he could, potentially, have the power to put a stop to them.
Mickey blew out a long sigh. The Doctor would find out eventually either way. The man had a time machine, after all.
"He was her boyfriend before me," he told him.
The Doctor frowned.
"What's wrong with that, then?" he asked, confused, "Did something happen to him?"
"I wish," Mickey said darkly.
The Doctor was starting to catch on as to where this conversation was going. Mickey saw something dark shift in his eyes. There was still just a hint of it, but he was quite sure that he was going to catch a glimpse of the oncoming storm quite soon.
"She met Jimmy when she was still in school," Mickey started, "Sixteen, seventeen, I don't really remember how old she was. She was young, though."
He clenched and unclenched his fists before continuing.
"Anyway, he was the first boy she ever really fancied. Early on, I remember her telling me and her mum about him. She would just go on for ages about how cool and how great he was. She didn't have to try very hard to make him like her back, either. All the boys at school fancied Rose," he smiled, "though she didn't even have a clue."
The Doctor gave a smile at that, as well.
Mickey returned to his story. "It wasn't long before Rose and Jimmy were a pair. It went well for about a month or so, but then I started noticing some strange stuff."
A thrill ran up the Doctor's spine. "Strange like how?" he asked.
"At first, it was just little changes in her attitude. She seemed quieter, more distracted, like. You'd ask her a question and it'd be as if you'd just broken her out of some sort of dream state. I only started getting worried when she came home the one day with a bruise on her arm."
The Doctor had to clench his teeth to restrain the anger that abruptly ran through him. It was thick and hot, the kind of anger that caused you to do things without thinking. He tried to focus on Mickey.
"I asked her how she'd gotten it and she told me that she'd fallen. Called herself stupid for doing it, too. She didn't want to go into any details about it, so I left it at that. The next few weeks, though, the bruises started becoming more and more frequent. The one day, she'd say that she had walked into a door. The next, she would ramble on about burning herself with the kettle while making tea. Eventually, even Jackie knew something was off."
He paused, checking to see if the Doctor was still listening. He was, and he was fuming. There was no outright anger in his manner, but the darkness that had filled his eyes was enough to make any man take a step back.
Mickey considered stopping the story for a moment; maybe leave it to Rose to tell him the rest when she was ready.
"Go on," the Doctor told him curtly, banishing all these thoughts from his mind. Mickey wasn't going to deny the Doctor of information in this state. Especially not about Rose.
Mickey nodded, choosing to ignore the fact that he was slowly infuriating the powerful Time Lord.
"The final straw was when Rose came to my apartment one night. When I heard her knocking, it was late, probably past twelve. I opened the door and she was crying. She told me that she couldn't go home. She didn't want her mother to notice her black eye."
Mickey stopped, having to control his own anger now, as well.
"I gave her some tea, told her that she could stay as long as she wanted. I was smitten, of course, even then. She told me that Jimmy had been hitting her and that she had broken up with him that night."
Mickey frowned, disturbed by the memory. "She said that he had told her she was worthless."
The Doctor's whole world was trembling. He didn't even notice how hard his hands were clamped down on the edges of the kitchen counter.
Someone had hurt Rose. Someone had told her that she was worthless.
Without being fully aware of his actions, the Doctor let go of the counter and swept out of the kitchen, making his way to the console room. Mickey followed uncertainly behind him, afraid of what his stories might have spurred in the Time Lord.
Wordlessly, menacingly, the Doctor walked over to the console. He set its coordinates for 2003, destination the Powell Estate.
"What are you doing?" Mickey asked.
"I'm going to go find Jimmy," he said quietly.
What scared Mickey the most weren't the words, but the way he said it. There was no anger, only a deathly calm. The kind of calm that reigned before a mighty storm.
"Are you sure that that's a good idea?" Mickey asked timidly, afraid of the very alien-like being that had suddenly made its appearance before his eyes.
The Doctor didn't answer. He simply stared straight ahead, menacingly serene.
"Doctor?"
The Time Lord turned around. He spotted her by the door to the console room. She was staring at him uncertainly. She seemed confused.
Seeing Rose— beautiful, fragile, yet also so very strong—all his anger dissipated instantly.
Knowing what Jimmy had done to her, how he had hurt her, the Doctor realised something: There was no use rehashing such a painful time in her life. He was proud of her, because even before she had been Rose Tyler the time traveler, his savior in so many ways, she had had the common sense to save herself.
He would never undermine that victory of hers by going back to change it.
Finally, looking at his Rose, the Doctor came to a decision.
He had to keep her safe. Had to keep her happy. He would never allow her to feel as though she wasn't worth anything, because to him, she was the single most important being in the universe.
"Are we in flight?" Rose asked him. He caught the glint of excitement in her eye at the thought of adventure.
He flipped a switch and the TARDIS stopped moving. Though Rose and Mickey wouldn't notice, he had changed the TARDIS's course completely.
"I'm taking you to see the singing hallows of the Whispering Caves."
"Ooh," Rose said with a wistful smile, "That sounds absolutely lovely!"
Out of the blue, the Doctor grabbed her and held her in a tight, sure hug. She hugged him back with a startled chuckle, throwing a quizzical look over his shoulder at Mickey.
Mickey just shrugged his shoulders.
"What was that for?" she asked, pulling back.
"Oh, nothing," the Doctor smiled, "Just remembered I hadn't given you one of those in a while, is all."
Rose smiled, her eyebrows knitting together in a happy, but confused manner.
"One day, you're going to have to tell me about what was going through your head at moments like these," she told him, ruffling his hair playfully.
"Yep," he agreed, "but first, new sights and sounds await us!"
The Doctor and Mickey shared a look as Rose ran for the TARDIS doors. For a brief moment, there was a pure, mutual understanding between them of their affections for Rose.