I've been bad and been working on my new epic story (info on my profile page) and finishing off this (very) short story instead of doing university coursework... but it's twenty past eight and I'm going down the pub soon so I'm letting myself off! Just a quick missing scene from "The Doctor Dances" as it is one of my very favourite episodes.

Oh, and a completely unconnected question: does anyone like Doctors? as in the daytime soap on after Neighbours... just curious cos I'm addicted and want to write a story, but don't know if anyone else would care lol!

"What about Jack? Why did he say goodbye"

The Doctor looked up slowly, meeting Rose's eye, the question hanging in the air. He'd deliberately not mentioned the time agent's name on the way back to the TARDIS, talking about anything but that. But people always said it was what you didn't say that mattered the most. He supposed that was true.

Rose raised her eyebrows pointedly. "Well?"

The Doctor sighed. "Well, I imagine he meant what people always mean when they say goodbye. You know… goodbye."

"No, he wouldn't do that!" Rose insisted. "He wouldn't just…"

"What? Wander off?" The Doctor scoffed. "Rose, you don't even know the guy."

"I know enough!"

"What, to want to bring him along with us?"

"I hardly knew you but I still came along!" Rose retorted. She paused a second, "I still hardly know you."

"Well, you're not going to get to know me if you keep inviting strangers on board are you?" He shrugged and began preparing to leave 1941.

"Mickey wasn't a stranger!" Rose snapped. "He was… is… my boyfriend."

"You don't seem very sure."

Rose made a Slitheen-like noise which he took to convey exasperation, as she angrily kicked the pillar closest to her, then winced.

"Feel better now?"

"No, not really." Rose sat down and clutched her foot. After a few minutes, she looked up at him. "You could seem a bit more sympathetic, you know."

"Why? You kicked the pillar." Rose shot him a filthy look and he relented slightly. He sat down heavily next to her. "Let's have a look at it."

Rose shielded her foot from him. "What, you're suddenly a medical doctor?"

"I try." He pushed her hands away and looked at her de-socked toes. He began putting pressure on her foot and gauging her response. After a while, to break the silence, he said, "You won't be doing much dancing if you keep kicking things."

"Won't be doing much dancing anymore anyway," Rose muttered. "Not if Jack's not around."

"Since when was he the only one who could dance around here?"

"Well you didn't exactly show much aptitude for it earlier, did you?" Rose demanded crossly. "Ouch!" She glared at him as he pressed on a particularly painful spot.

"Sorry." He fell silent and prodded around the area gently. He glanced up briefly and caught her eye. "You could always teach me."

"Teach you what?"

"How to dance."

Rose was taken aback for a second. It had never even occurred to her that there was anything she could teach him, anything he'd want to know anyway. He'd always been the one to know everything, and anything he didn't know wasn't very valuable in his eyes. She'd tried explaining the finer points of fashion or a complicated story line in a soap, and he'd wandered off in exasperation. She'd stopped trying a long time ago.

"Yeah, well. You never seem very interested." She pulled her foot off his lap. "It feels better now," she informed him, pulling her sock back on.

He grinned. "Healing hands, you see." He waved his hands theatrically in front of him. Rose couldn't help smiling, however weakly. He stood up and walked back across to the control panel.

"So where are we going then?" Rose asked, more for something to say than as if she really cared.

"Do you care?"

"Not really."

He sighed heavily. "Rose, we can't go and get everyone and bring them on board. That's not how I work."

"I'm not asking for everyone! Just Jack!"

"I don't understand why you like him so much."

"I told you. Cause he's like you. Only with…"

"Dating and dancing, I know." He rolled his eyes. "As if that's the important thing. What would you need that for when you've got the whole of time and space at your fingertips? When you've got me?" He grinned cheesily.

Rose regarded him coldly. "Because I'm nineteen," she said finally. "And that's what nineteen year olds do."

He looked at her sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"No, come on, I want to know. Is that really what you want, to be normal, to do what everyone else does? Cause if it is, I can take you straight home now, take you back to the exact moment we left." He raised his eyebrows. "Is it?"

"No, of course it's not!" Rose snapped finally. "I don't want to go back home, I just…" She shook her head in exasperation, unable to articulate what she wanted to say.

"You want to date and dance."

Rose nodded mutely.

"And you can't do that with me." He shrugged. "Fair enough point." He turned his back on her and began pressing buttons on the control panel. Rose watched his back for several seconds before speaking.

"What are you doing?"

"Your wish is my command." He pulled a leaver and stepped back. "If you really want him aboard, I guess we better go and find him."

Rose couldn't hide the smile that lit up her face. "Are you serious?"

"Am I ever not?"

Rose hung back, not throwing herself onto him for a hug as usual, and it upset him more than he was willing to admit that there was something between them, stopping that interaction. Still, if she was that set on Jack joining them, there'd be more blocks to come.

"Thanks." She bit her lip anxiously as he turned back to fiddle with some more levers and knobs and who knew what else. "You know, even if we find Jack… it doesn't mean we can't dance. You know, just sometimes. Once in a while. When the mood takes us."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Jack will probably wear you out, he seems pretty insatiable. And you'll get fed up with all that fancy footwork after a bit. And you won't want to slum it with an amateur like me."

Rose smiled, and took both his hands in hers. "I'll never be too tired to slum it with you," she said softly.

He couldn't help returning that smile. "Is that a fact?"

She nodded. "So how about we start now? I'll need all the practice I can get before we find Jack."

"Oh, so I'm just a good warm-up, am I?" He pretended to be offended.

Rose nodded, her tongue poking out her mouth teasingly. "Oh yeah. But a very good warm-up."