A/N Here is the first chapter – written in 3rd person, but following Rose. This will alternate, but not repeating the same scenes just from different viewpoints, as we find this pointless.
Collaboration with gooseberrie.

Chapter 1:

"And you be careful, Rose, take care of yourself. You are worth so much, don't you dare forget that! And have fun – god knows you deserve it!" Jackie was still standing in the doorway, the tears in her eyes destroying the makeup around them. She had wanted to accompany Rose to the campus, but Rose had felt like this was something she needed to do alone, much to Jackie's dismay, although a part of her felt proud of her little girl growing up. She just wished it wasn't so soon...

"Bye, Mum!" Rose called back over her shoulder, slightly exasperated. Finally, after about half an hour of goodbye hugs, she was going to university. A year later than Mickey, Shareen, and the rest of her friends, but still - all the hard work was now at last worth something. She knew Merryweather wasn't the best college in the country, or anywhere near, but it was the one she had been hoping for. She readjusted her backpack, and her grip on the suitcase handle - she was going to be boarding on-campus since it was quite a while away – outside London.

She clambered into the waiting taxi and watched the Powell Estate fade into dozens of other houses, which finally gave way to the dark grey of the motorway.
This was it.

The second she left the cab, she found herself being smothered by a mass of familiar blue jumper.

"Hey, Rose!" Mickey shouted loudly, despite the fact that he was right next to her.

"Hi, Mickey," she said back, smiling. Her on off boyfriend could be annoying sometimes, but she did like being around him, and after all, without Mickey she would never have redone her A levels successfully. After all that business with Jimmy Stone, she had been a year behind the rest of her class, and she was going to work in the local department store, but when it exploded, quite mysteriously, Mickey convinced her to go back to school. She was glad, if she had worked at Henrik's, she wouldn't be here today.

"I'll show you around - come on, we haven't got that much time - lessons start tomorrow and it's already-" Mickey checked his watch "6 o'clock,"

Rose grinned, and picked up her suitcase again, following Mickey around as he pointed out various buildings to her which she was sure she would not remember - the whole campus seemed so big! Rose knew she would get lost within a few minutes if she was left alone.

"And here is your room - you're rooming with Shareen - she nagged and nagged until you were allowed to be put in her room. The excuses she pulled, some of them were complete and utter lies!" Mickey said, laughing.

Rose opened the door, and found half of the room to be typically covered in posters full of boys, Shareen style. Her half had blank white walls, a small cupboard and a comfortable looking bed in the corner. "I like it," she said. It was true - even half of this room was bigger and tidier than her room in the flat at home.

"That's good," Mickey said, "because even if you didn't you'd have no other choice,"

Rose ignored him; Mickey's sense of humour wasn't always the best.

Once she'd finished unpacking, Shareen bounced in, demanding to know everything that had happened while they were apart. Nothing, Rose had replied truthfully. She knew it was just a semi-subtle intro for her to ask Shareen the same question. No surprises, Shareen had lots to tell her. She had recently begun a relationship with Darren, a guy from her biology class. According to Shareen, he was "hot, hot, hot". Rose congratulated her, but inwardly felt distant – after everything with Jimmy Stone she had decided to stay away from boyfriends for a while, a rule which even Mickey wasn't exempt to.

Rose quickly and easily settled into a routine of sleeping, eating, classes, making friends, and then the same thing all over again. She called Jackie every two or three days so that the latter wouldn't think anything serious had happened, as she was sometimes prone to overreactions. By the end of the first week she already felt at home in the sprawling university, which made both Mickey and Shareen happy.

Everything was so perfect she knew there had to be a catch, and this came in the form of John Smith. This name was overly mentioned, always followed by either glares or blushes, but at first Rose had ignored it, assuming that such a common name was bound to be talked of a lot. But such a frequent name often reverses upon itself – in actual fact it wasn't very common at all as most people with surnames Smith would rather pick a different name for their children. Instead of asking about this mysterious person outright, though, Rose decided to investigate further to prove her theory. She had asked both Mickey and Shareen how many people at Merryweather were called John Smith, knowing it was an odd question but deciding to just go with it. They had both looked slightly worried and clammed up. Mickey had said "No one anymore," so she assumed this was some past student. However, as time carried on, she found herself growing more and more curious. Who was this John Smith who seemed to be the talk of the school, even when he was not even attending anymore? She was quite certain he was not some celebrity, as she definitely hadn't heard of him. As for a son of a super billionaire or something along those lines – why would such a person go to Merryweather? And it definitely wasn't your typical wealthy name. No, that can't be it, Rose concluded. But then what? How could a normal person influence all the students here so much?

By this point her curiosity was mounting so much that she couldn't take it anymore. She decided to ask the next person she heard mention his name, regardless of how shy she felt in front of all the people she thought were judging her because of her being a year behind, something which had happened often in her last school. She shuddered. She didn't particularly want to think of the past.

The opportunity presented itself soon enough, in her English lesson. Barely five minutes into class, the name had, as she expected it to, cropped up again. Lara Duncan, the girl next to her, and Leila Evans were passing each other notes under the table. Rose had glanced over, and seen the messages:

Have you heard?

Heard what?

John Smith is coming back!

Already? I thought he was expelled for good this time.

I know, they just can't seem to get rid of him, can they?

This was when Rose stepped in. "Hey Lara, who exactly is John Smith?" she asked, feeling slightly awkward at intruding into their conversation.

Lara looked at her, shock evident on her face. "You don't know? Oh I forgot, you're in the year under me! Well-" Lara leaned in, beckoning Rose closer. She looked obviously pleased at this opportunity to gossip. "He's your typical bad boy. Leather jacket, cigarettes, the lot. He never really speaks to anyone apart from Donna Noble," obvious jealousy clouded Lara's voice. "Which really sucks because anyone can see they're not an item – she's basically his sister - meaning he's free. Which brings me to the most important aspect of John Smith." she fanned her face with her hand. "He is fit! Absolutely gorgeous! You can't have everything though - he has never been with someone for longer than a few days, and that was a record." Lara's face turned sour, and Rose wondered if anything had ever happened between him and her. "He's scary though - he's got this expression… Once I walked past him when he was bunking a lesson - he does that a lot - and he spat on the floor, right in front of me; he could have stained my new boots!" Lara looked outraged at the mere memory. "So I told him what I was thinking of him at that moment, and he just looked at me, really slowly and menacingly. It was really creepy, let me tell you - the look in his eyes, it was murderous. Although he looks like that all the time so I couldn't tell if it was because of me or just whatever he was thinking of,"

"Anyways, last thing we heard, he got expelled for having this huge argument with the head because of the drug stash that was discovered in his locker. It got really nasty, and really loud, and apparently he went all violent!" Leila butted in excitedly, her voice rising above the volume of the rest of the class and catching Mrs Owen's attention.

"That's enough, Leila, Lara - don't go around spreading rumours like that to new students!" Mrs Owen shouted angrily. "It's not fair to judge people when you don't know anything about them!"

"She's always had a soft side for Smith," Lara whispered in Rose's ear. "She's the only one though - the other teachers don't tolerate him in their classes at all. It's a miracle if he makes it 10 minutes into a lesson without being sent out."

This was as far as Lara could get as she was being sent a vicious glare from Mrs. Owen. The rest of the lesson passed in relative silence, although she could tell that both Lara and Leila's minds were once again on the infamous John Smith. So, she supposed, could Mrs. Owen, as the teacher seemed to give them an extra load of homework that day.

This satisfied Rose's curiosity for the time being. It was typical for people to make huge deals about people who were obvious pompous arseholes. In other words, she wasn't impressed by this so called John Smith at all. Thinking about it, she severely doubted that was his real name at all. He probably had a really embarrassing name like Brussel Sprout or something. She allowed a small smile to spread across her lips at the thought.

Anyway, she wouldn't let herself become as obsessed as nearly all the others seemed to be. It was now the weekend and she had to go out and do some shopping. Her and Shareen were planning to make some cookies for Mickey's birthday, which was on the coming Sunday.

"You coming, Shar?" she asked in Shareen's general direction, who was busy swooning over a picture of Darren that she had taken a few days ago. Several more printouts of this were pinnned up around her bed. Rose grinned inside. Shareen had it bad.

"What?" Shareen asked, putting down her phone and looking around the room.

"To get the biscuit ingredients!" Rose said, rolling her eyes at her friend's dreamy state. Shareen wouldn't admit it yet, but Rose was completely certain she was in love with him.

"Oh yeah, sure," Shareen perked up and started packing her bag.

In that moment there was a polite rap on their bedroom door. "You open it, Rose," Shareen said.

Rose opened the door, and saw a boyish figure standing there that could only be Darren – Shareen had shown her enough pictures for her to recognise him anywhere.

"I'm here for the beautiful girl in the corner," Darren said, grinning.

Shareen heard his voice and ran over, squealing as she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Hi Darren," she said, grinning. "This is Rose, my best friend and roommate. My single roommate," she gave Rose a disapproving look, "meaning that you are welcome to bring the best of your friends along anytime,"

Darren laughed easily. "I'll see what I can do," he promised. "But that's not what I was here for. Shareen, would you do me the honour of accompanying me to lunch?" he bowed formally.

Shareen looked at Rose, her face torn. "You go ahead," Rose said good-naturedly. "I'll get the ingredients and then we'll bake the biscuits a bit later,"

"Thanks Rosie!" Shareen called over her shoulder, already being pulled out of the room by Darren.

Rose chuckled to herself. The easy relationship between Shareen and Darren was one she hoped to have for herself one day. One day, she reminded herself, thinking back to Jimmy. A good break from men was what she both needed and wanted right now. She slung a bag over her shoulder, checking for her purse, and went to the bus stop outside Merryweather's main entrance. The local bus ran every ten minutes, connecting the university to the nearby town. She had never been, as she got her food from the canteen, but she was sure there would be a supermarket somewhere.

Just as she had thought, Rose was greeted by the sight of a large Waitrose sign, and headed over. She grabbed the butter, sugar, eggs and flour, throwing a few packets of chocolate chips on top for good measure. Hurrying to pay and get back home, she didn't realise she wasn't completely looking where she was going until she bumped into a solid figure.

"Sorry," she said, moving to the side. The bus was already pulling into the bus stop and she would prefer to catch this one than having to wait, even if 1o minutes weren't particularly long.

"You've missed it," a voice somewhere next to her said, and she was confused for a few seconds before she saw the bus driving past her.

"I know," she said, aware that this was coming out rather snarkily. She turned to face the voice and her breath momentarily hitched, although she did a good job of hiding it, because the owner of the voice did not look like she was expecting him to. He was fairly tall, wearing a bright pink T-shirt saying "Cuddle me like a Panda" in bright red letters, and some nondescript blue jeans. His hair was falling floppily in his eyes, which were his most stunning feature – a dark brown that could have been chocolate, but somehow looked harsher. Rose looked at the T-shirt again and couldn't help giggling. It really didn't fit in with the rest of him.

He followed her gaze, seeing what she was laughing at. "Present," he said curtly, his body still as tense as when she had bumped into him. What was with this guy?

She was slightly taken aback at his tone, but managed to smile anyway – It wouldn't do to be rude, her mother always said, although her opinion changed very quickly and this apparently didn't apply for her herself, only other people. "I like it," she said.

He didn't answer, just looked at her with an unreadable expression. "Maybe it will be worth coming back after all," he murmured.

Rose looked at him quizzically, but he was already walking away. As he bent down to tie his shoelace, the back of his trouser leg slipped up a little, revealing a bulky ankle monitor. An ankle monitor? Then the pieces all fell into place and she cursed herself for not realising earlier. Around 20, living in the town of Merryweather and wearing an ankle monitor for what may or may not have been a drug related crime. This must be him. The one and only pompous arsehole of Merryweather. "John Smith," she caught herself saying under her breath.

The latter turned around abruptly, as if he had heard her, but that was impossible. He looked at her again and the corners of his lips quirked up as he winked suggestively. His eyes, however, stayed cold. Then he turned back around and started jogging off into the other direction. Rose looked away. Apart from his looks, this boy was the exact mirror of Jimmy Stone. Confident, arrogant, and a complete player. She wasn't going to get involved with him, that was for sure. He may have good looks, but Rose could definitely abstain if the package included a personality like that. She shuddered, and hurried to the bus stop, shopping in hand.

If he was really returning to uni, this was going to be a very interesting term, she found herself thinking. Not that she was going to break her rule of no involvement, no, but some good gossip was always a fun way to brighten up the months she was going to spend learning. Oh yes, she thought, this will definitely be an interesting term.

A/N Very interested to hear everything you think, please drop a review down there.
The next chapter shall be posted as soon as possible, with updates probably every 2-3 days. The badboy! genre, as far as we know, isn't very common ranging to nonexistent in the Doctor Who fandom, so we thought we'd try our hand at introducing it. You never know until you try!