A/N : I figured it was time for me to write from a new Point of View, someone other than the Doctor. Et viola, Rose popped up. This fic is dedicated entirely to tsutsuji, for planting the plot-bunny in my head during one of her reviews.
There's a whole mess of pairings mentioned in here. The main ones are the Doctor/Jack, and Rose/Mickey. It's set a day or two before 'Boom Town'.
At night, Rose stifled sobs and cried black mascara onto her pillow.
Surrounded by the dusky dark, with the warm air crushing around her, her bottom lip trembled, her breath choked and spluttered. Nose stuffed up so she couldn't breathe. Stupid.
Laughter, and the faint murmur of speech were still audible through the door. Jack and the Doctor were still awake, still talking and bonding elsewhere on the TARDIS. They hadn't retreated to bed yet; they were too quiet for that.
They're started sleeping together a month after Jack had boarded the TARDIS. A month. Nothing more. Really. What kind of time was that? Were they really that easy? Rose knew Jack was, but the Doctor? Nah, she'd thought…She'd thought he was different. Better.
She'd thought wrong, obviously.
She wished she could hate Jack. She wished she could detest the very ground he walked on, and his damn smile, and the way he was always saying the right thing to make her feel special, even though he obviously only had eyes for the Doctor these days. But it wasn't easy to hate Jack. She'd tried.
She shoved her pillow over her head as she heard giggling making its way up the corridor, hushed conversation passing by her door. Sometimes she was convinced that the TARDIS was torturing her on purpose; allowing the sound to pass through walls that could have been soundproof. This was a bloody space-ship-time-machine-thingy-ma-whassit, wasn't it? Surely soundproof walls weren't too hi-tech for it to handle.
Moans, laughter, the squeak of bedsprings travelled perfectly through the walls and the pillow clamped over her head. She felt sick. This wasn't right, this wasn't fair. The Doctor had been hers before Jack had come along. Hers, and only hers. But then Jack had come, and there'd been three of them instead of two and three wasn't a safe number, three was unstable, three was unruly and three wasn't two and Rose just wanted it to be two again, because two meant the Doctor and her, not the Doctor and her and Jack.
Oh, they try. Jack especially, always smiling and complimenting her and worming his way into her good books. She wished he'd stay out. It would be easier if she could just glare at him all day long.
But, for the most part, they include her in every possible way. They explore far off planets and future cultures together; Jack shares his stories with her almost as much, if not more, than he does with the Doctor; the Doctor directs his flashing grins at her and not Jack.
During the day. Off the TARDIS.
At night, inside, home, things changed. Jack and the Doctor's priorities shifted, so that she was suddenly nowhere on the list. Eyes on each other alone, smiles for each other alone; she hated it. She'd never been a third wheel before, and she'd definitely never been a third wheel in between two men.
She tried to be happy for them. The Doctor had been alone for so long, he deserved this. He more than deserved this. He deserved someone loyal by his side, someone dependable, someone to take of him. But why couldn't that person be her? For a while, she'd thought it was going to be. Before Jack came along, she'd thought that maybe, just maybe, she and the Doctor had a future together, romantically speaking.
Then Jack had come along with his harmless flirting and his smiles and his swagger and blind courage. The Doctor had been entranced immediately. She hadn't noticed it at first, had mistaken it for jealousy and mistrust. Had mistaken the lustful gazes the Doctor sent Jack's way as hateful glares. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And yet, it wasn't just Jack she was jealous of. It was the Doctor too, because she'd seen Jack first. She'd danced with him first, she'd flirted with him first, and yet he was in the Doctor's bed instead of hers. How was that fair? Jack was supposed to be hers, her find, her catch. Not his.
It was stupid to think like that. Jack belonged to neither of them, he belonged one hundred percent to himself. He regularly disappeared to explore the new planets or time periods without her and the Doctor – whenever he did that, the Doctor would be anxious and agitated until Jack returned a few hours later, usually baring some strange tales or odd souvenir – and had so many life stories to tell. He was experienced in pretty much everything; he knew how to operate the TARDIS almost as well as the Doctor did, and what he didn't know he guessed.
Rose couldn't do that. She needed the Doctor. Jack didn't, but he still had him. What was the logic in that? It was crazy. Insane. Illogical.
And they were… sweet, together. They were right, they clicked. It was always cute to watch the Doctor's protective and possessive side come out around Jack, who neither needed protection or possessing. It was amusing to watch the pair talk to each other, constant banter flowing easily between them. It broke her heart to watch them kiss, desperate and passionate.
She thought that Jack scared the Doctor. Or, his feelings for Jack scared the Doctor. It all added up to the same thing, right? Her Mum had once told her that if love didn't scare the hell out of you, there was something wrong.
Mickey hadn't scared Rose.
Mickey had been warm and safe and he'd held her like she was important. He'd eaten chips with her on the pier and taken her to the cinema at least once a month. The Doctor took Jack to foreign planets. Was that love? Far off planets and distant stars?
No, that couldn't be right. If that was the case, then no human in 2005 could possibly be in love, and that clearly wasn't the case. Maybe love was safety and security, in which case the Doctor and Jack didn't even know what love was. They risked their lives on practically a daily basis, and while they appeared to enjoy it, that could never be considered safe.
But they did love each other. She didn't know if they'd admitted it yet, but the way they acted around each other, the gazes that almost seemed worshipful, the special smiles reserved only for the other, the free-flowing banter, the comfortable silences. Rose couldn't remember if she'd shared all that with Mickey. She could hardly even remember how he kissed, how he talked, how he held her.
She turned onto her back, slipping the pillow off of her face. The sounds from outside her bedroom had quietened, still there but a soft murmur. Background noise. Background gasps and moans and the occasional whispered name.
Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she'd ask to go home, to see Mickey. Tomorrow she'd rediscover what love was.