Author's Note: Hiya! Yes, I know...it's been a while. This fic kind of took a back seat to some of the more ambitious stuff I've been working on (*cough* Shadow *cough*), but I got around to it eventually as you can see! Don't forget to review and tell me what you think!

Enjoy :)

...

Rose woke up that morning to the sound of whispered bickering just outside her bedroom door.

"—because I've known her basically her entire life that's why!" she heard Mickey's voice.

"Well, it wasn't very difficult for her to up and leave you for me, was it? Twice, I might say!" the Doctor hissed in reply.

Apparently, this comment was the cause of the quiet scuffle that then broke out.

"Get—out—of my way!" Mickey whispered furiously. It sounded as though they were shoving each other or something.

"Careful, you're going to drop it!" the Doctor warned.

"Well, if you'd just—stop—shoving me—I'll go in first without dropping it!"

Rose sat up in her bed with a frown. She checked the clock on her bedside table and realised that it was only 06:30. And it was a Saturday! The both of them knew full well that she slept 'til at least 09:00 on Saturdays!

How was she to get any sleep with those two making such a fuss right outside of her door? Honestly!

She got up and moved over to the exit, readying herself for the telling off she was about to give the Doctor and Mickey.

They'd all been travelling in the TARDIS together for a little over a month now and to say that she was a little bit fed up with their competitiveness was a wholly understatement. She'd have thought that their sharing a room and all would have helped them to let go of their differences a little bit. Give them a chance to see the world out of the other one's eyes.

Boy, had she been wrong.

If anything, they'd been getting more at each other's throats since the living arrangement had been made. She had no idea what they talked about in the evenings when she wasn't there, but when she would find them in the morning, it would usually be to an atmosphere thick with general sulkiness. That special brand of poutiness that the Doctor knew so well seemed to be rubbing off on Mickey, as well.

"Oi, you two!" she implored as she opened the door, "What are you—"

She was brought up short by the sight of them. The Doctor was angrily trying to manoeuvre himself past Mickey by shoving him in the ribs with his elbow. Mickey, in response, was barring the Doctor's path with one of his feet while simultaneously staving off the Time Lord's attack by smooshing a hand up against his face. All the while, the both of them were seemingly trying to steer clear of the cake that Mickey was holding high above his head with his other hand.

When they spotted her, their eyes popped wide before the pair of them dropped their hands and stared guiltily at the floor. Rose tried not to laugh at this; they looked like two schoolboys who'd just been scolded.

"What are you doing?" she asked crossly, folding her arms.

When they didn't say anything, she raised an eyebrow. "Well?" she prompted. She tried not to think about the fact that she sounded suspiciously like their mother. Like her mother—she gave a little shudder.

"Well—umm—we were actually just—er," Mickey said dumbly. He held up the cake for her to see.

It was chocolate. Her favourite.

"We wanted to bring it to you while you were still, you know, in bed and that," the Doctor muttered awkwardly. He cleared his throat and met her eyes with a small smile, "Happy birthday."

Rose felt her anger dissipate quickly. "Oh," she said sheepishly. She grinned, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

Both boys grinned back and Mickey raised the cake with more confidence. He went over to Rose's side, slinging an arm around her shoulders in a loose hug and planting a kiss on her cheek. "Happy birthday, love."

"So!" the Doctor said cheerily when he had also gotten his hug in, his hand lingering slightly on her waist. He looked between his two companions, "I reckon we've got a party to attend."

"Party?" Rose asked, slightly alarmed, "What party?"

Mickey held up his hands defensively. "Hey, it wasn't our idea," he told her earnestly, "It's all your mum's fault, really. Me and her were chatting on the phone a few days back and things just, sort of, escalated."

"Escalated?" her eyebrows shot up. Now she was properly alarmed, "What does that mean?"

Instead of addressing Mickey, Rose looked straight at the Doctor. There was nothing that could tell her that Mister Grand-gestures wasn't involved in this apparent escalation in some way or another.

"Hey!" he said indignantly, mirroring Mickey's movements by raising his hands, "What are you looking at me for?"

"Exactly how big is this party going to be, Doctor?"

"Mickey just said that it was all Jackie's—"

"Cause last time you were involved in a party—mum's fortieth—you wound up being accused of stealing the crown jewels!"

"Oi! You told me that I should buy her a present!" he protested. He sniffed, "And it wasn't as though I was going to give her the real crown jewels, anyway. I just needed a sample of the genuine article for cloning purposes."

"Yeah well, your present was a hit in the end, I suppose," she gave him a fond smile.

Aaaand cue staring.

Mickey shifted uncomfortably as the two of them started smiling at each other again. Ugh, he thought to himself miserably, they just seemed so—so—

He heaved an internal sigh.

So in love.

That's what it was. The way they looked at each other. The way they had these moments of intimacy— far more intimate than other couples had— without even touching. It was weird, seeing Rose be that way with a bloke. Mickey had seen her with a number of beaus over the years; the odd two-week fling, Jimmy Stone—he'd thought that, once they were together, that would be it. He didn't like to boast or anything, but he'd fancied that he'd made Rose relatively happy during the course of their relationship. Even eventually gotten her to love him, he believed.

But that wasn't this.

She and the Doctor, they just—gravitated towards each other. Mickey had noticed this from day one. It wasn't even voluntary, he knew, but they couldn't seem to keep away from each other for long. One minute, he would catch Rose alone, or he and the Doctor would be having a conversation in the console room in her absence, and the next, there she would be. There he would be. Standing with barely any space between them. Sometimes entwining their hands like it was a reflex reaction.

Like they were doing now.

"Mickey?" Rose pulled him from his thoughts. Her eyes were twinkling with amusement, "What are you thinking about over there?

"Probably contemplating how bad he is at baking," the Doctor remarked. He shook his head in mock horror, "Thought he was gonna burn down my TARDIS for a minute there."

"Well, at least I can say that I tried," he retorted, snapping back into his and the Doctor's old routine of back-and-forth, "You were just standing in a corner with folded arms, bossing me around the entire time. I reckon you were really just hiding the fact that you're just as rubbish at it as I am!"

"Mickey Smith," the Doctor gasped, actually looking properly outraged at the accusation, "I'll have you know that I studied the art of pastry making under Paris's finest! I was just trying to give you some pointers, since you're so keen on impressing Rose and all."

Now it was Mickey's turn to be outraged. Their argument was just about to turn into their second fight for the day, when Rose started giggling uncontrollably. Both boys turned to look at her confusedly.

"Hold on," she gasped through the giggles. She rounded on the Doctor, "You studied the art of pastry making?" Another fit of giggles befell her as an image of the Doctor wearing a frilly, pink apron and smiling down at a freshly baked apple crumble popped into her head.

"Let's just get you over to the party," he grumbled, but Mickey could see that he was secretly trying to hide his smile at making Rose laugh. Lovesick idiot.

…

"You never told me how many people were going to be at this party," Rose breathed as the three of them stood behind the TARDIS door.

"Well," the Doctor said in a non-committal tone, pulling at his ear the way he always did when he knew he was in a tight spot.

Rose raised her eyebrows at him. "That many, then?"

The Doctor just opened the door.

"Happy birthday, Rose!" more than a hundred people shouted.

That man, Rose thought to herself in affectionate exasperation. He'd gone and rented out a palace. Probably knew the owner, if she knew him. And the best thing about all of it was seeing all of her mates from off the estate set against the posh backdrop.

The party actually turned out to be a lot of fun in the end, despite the ribbing Rose got from her friends throughout the whole thing. Some of them were disbelieving, some of them were amused—and some of them were jealous.

"Now I know what Rose sees in this older bloke," Rose heard Shareen, who'd had a few and had apparently grown oblivious to their close proximity, say, "I mean, I just thought she was following him around 'cause he was handsome and all that, but the truth had to come out some time. He's bloody loaded!"

Rose bristled slightly at Shareen's comment. She knew that her friend didn't exactly approve of her and the Doctor's—well, whatever one would call what they had, but that didn't change the fact that she was being really rude and that it was Rose's party.

From the opposite side of the room, the Doctor was sipping at his champagne, feeling all by his lonesome. He had a clear view of Rose standing across the hall. He'd wanted to give her a moment alone with her friends, though he was quickly rethinking that decision on his part.

"What do you suppose they're talking about?" Mickey asked as he came to stand beside the Doctor and followed his gaze to where Rose stood. At the moment, it seemed as though Rose had taken her mate Shareen to the side and was having a rather heated discussion with her.

"No idea," the Doctor shook his head. He nodded towards Rose, "She's not very happy, though. That's her why-didn't-you-fix-the-washing-machine face."

Mickey looked at him briefly before dropping his gaze and shaking his head.

"What?" the Doctor asked him.

"Just—the two of you," Mickey said, fixing his eyes on Rose where she was, quite obviously, rapidly losing her temper, "You just seem so in sync. Like you've known each other for ages. It's like—" he bit his tongue.

"Like what?"

Mickey met his gaze. "It's like you've been together for longer than you lead us to believe."

"Oh," the Doctor simply said, suddenly looking at his feet.

They stood like that for a moment and Mickey realised that he wasn't going to be getting a straight answer if he didn't ask a straight question.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"How old is she really?"

The Time Lord blew out a long breath. He'd never wanted to broach this topic, though he always knew that he was going to have to one day. Jackie never asked, and the Doctor knew that she didn't want to know either way. She was always so relieved to see her daughter at all that she preferred not to think of how much time had passed for Rose between their visits. It really didn't matter.

"Cause, see, all these people are here today to celebrate Rose's twentieth birthday," Mickey continued, "but I reckon we might've already missed that milestone. So, if it's even really her birthday today, exactly what age is she?"

The Doctor looked at Rose and gave a small smile. She was giving Shareen such a telling off that people were starting to stare. Many a time had he been on the receiving end of one of those, and it wasn't pretty. He usually deserved it when it came his way, though. She would hardly be shouting at her friend like that if it wasn't with reason.

"Relatively speaking, Rose is just about twenty-three years old," he said, meeting Mickey's eyes evenly.

Mickey looked at him with a completely dumb-struck look on his face. "So, what, you two have been living together for nearly four years now?"

He nodded.

"And you've made us believe that she's only been with you for a few months?"

"It's just how things work, Mickey," he told him, "You need to understand that—that Rose isn't like the others were. With all my other companions, they would ask me to take them back every so often. Sometimes it would be months for me until they came back," he breathed a sigh, "but with her, it's the other way around. We talk about going to the Powell Estate every now and again, but the next thing we know, we get sidetracked and suddenly it's been three months since we've last stopped off. And we never stay long. An afternoon, sometimes for the weekend, and then we head out again. And suddenly it's been another month with just the two of us. You've experienced it, too. You've been travelling with us for a month now, yet in your friends' eyes, you've only been away for about a week."

"What are you two gossiping about over here?" Rose appeared at the Doctor's side, startling them.

"You done with your row, then?" Mickey asked her, ignoring the question.

"Done with more than just the row, actually," she said, casting an angry glance over her shoulder. Her cheeks were still slightly flushed from the argument.

"You alright?" the Doctor asked her concernedly, "What were you and her fighting about?"

"Yeah, course I am," she told him, though she didn't quite look it, "Shareen just said something that got to me is all."

"What did she say?" he asked her.

Looking at Rose's face, Mickey had a pretty good guess what the gist of it had been. Shareen had never liked the fact that Rose had run off with some bloke. She didn't like it when Rose had a bloke, period. When Rose had gone missing last year—thanks to His Lordship, by the way— Shareen had been the first one to point the finger at Mickey.

Later, when Rose was back and they'd broken off the relationship (well, she broke it off), Shareen had tried to make a move on him. Same thing with Jimmy. Most probably would have been the same thing with the Doctor if he hadn't been so stupidly in love with Rose that he never really left her side when they visited the Estate.

"Oh, you know," Rose said, choosing her words carefully, "She said—well, she basically called me shallow."

"What?" the Doctor seemed personally insulted by the notion. He pulled Rose into a hug, "Rose, you could never be shallow."

She chuckled. "That's what I said," she said into his shoulder. Then, pulling back, "I think we should start thinking of wrapping up, anyway. All the guests are either really knackered or really pissed," she grinned, "Especially Mum."

"Drunk Jackie?" the Doctor said in horror, "That's not something I've ever wanted to see."

"It's not so bad, really," Rose said, "When she's drunk she just gets kind of—weepy. She starts crying about dead flowers and things like that. At one point she gets all nostalgic."

"I think that's where she may be at right now," he said, nodding over Rose's shoulder to the woman of the hour where she was relaying her entire life story to a rather distraught-looking waiter.

Rose sighed. "We'd better get her home."

Suddenly, the two of them realised that they had been holding each other during their entire conversation. Both blushing, the Doctor let go of her waist and Rose, in turn, of his shoulders. As their arms fell back to their sides and they started heading towards Jackie, however, their hands did that unconscious entwining-thing again.

Rose stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "Aren't you coming, Mickey?"

Mickey realised that he'd been staring at the pair of them for longer than was socially acceptable. He gave Rose a reassuring smile. "Yeah," he said, "I'm right behind you."