A/N: Oh holy awesome reviews and comments batman! So glad I've captured you in this... Thanks!

Took a detour from the light to head back into the shadows a moment. The outcry over the possibility of the Doctor still ending up with River *cough*MarySue*cough* Song means that I had to get a little creative ... just a weenie bit.

I hope this detour is more well received. :)

~~oooOOOOooo~~

The Doctor ignored him completely and continued toward Rose.

Jim called out again for the Doctor to stop in a sharp and booming demand.

There was a pop, and then a sizzling crackle. And then the thump of a thrashing body on the ground.

The Doctor looked at the man on the floor writhing an involuntary dance of shaking limbs and gritted teeth with a brow arched high into his hairline. He lifted his eyes to the doorway and exhaled a breath of discovery. That breath them formed a smile that immediately widened into a thrilled grin.

"Mickey!"

Mickey let one side of his mouth curl into a smirk at the rather long extension the Doctor used in his name and held a finger up in a request for him to wait one minute. He then drew back that finger to depress the button on a walkie mike attached to his vest.

"Rejection by Taser," he announced humourously. "Who's got that, then?"

A voice crackled over the speaker by his ear. "Depends, Mickey. Taser by Tyler?"

"Smith," Mickey answered with a chuckle and a wink toward Rose.

"Okay, Taser by Smith." There was a pause and then a growl. "I'm going to call this an invalid bet. You can't bet on yourself, man."

"Then my bet shouldn't have been accepted, yeah?"

"Yeah, well. Let us work out the legalities of your act, yeah? If it's not a true strike then the kitty starts over."

"I'll send you a detailed report plus security footage," Mickey replied with a laugh. "He was about to hit the Doctor, and I reckon castration and decapitation by Tyler would've won out if I didn't make the hit."

"I hate you, Smith. That was my bet."

"Sucks to be you then, don't it? Smith out." He was chuckling to himself with a guffaw of self-pride when he released the walkie mic and let his hands fall to his sides. He rolled his eyes when he saw Rose, who stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest and her jaw set tight.

"You lot had bets on?" she snarled darkly in question. "Bets. On just how Jim was going to be rejected this time around?"

The Doctor looked aghast by that. "You mean this is a common thing for you Rose?" He pointed to the ground, where Jim lay in a semi-consciousness and groaning heap. "Gigantic thugs trying their all to take you as their mate?"

"I think wanting to mate is more accurate than wanting to become her mate," Mickey answered with a shrug as he walked toward the Time Lord. He held out his hand off slightly to one side and then swung it toward the Doctor to slap and then shake hands. "Hello, Boss. I heard you'd stopped by. Damn well took your time in doing so."

"Well," he drawled on a long breath as he scratched at his right sideburn. "Dimensional travel, there's a few hurdles to jump over before it can be done safely."

"Tell me about it," Mickey muttered as he gave a firm tug of the wires of his device to pull them from Jim's shoulder. He let out a breath as he wrapped them around the muzzle of the weapon. "Not to mention the lack of navigation on a canon pad. A shot'll drop you anywhere. Good thing she still had the key to that TARDIS of yours, Doctor. Once we added that to the matrix, we could at least be sure she'd land close to the old girl."

The Doctor's brows fell hard to hood over his eyes. "Hold on, what?"

"First few jumps, Rose," he said with slight humour in his voice to shield the concern. "Remember those?"

Rose shuddered and winced as she held onto herself. "I'd rather not, taa."

The Doctor passed a look of concern toward Rose. His voice was soft, but firm. "How many jumps, did you make before you found me, Rose?"

She looked up at him and inhaled a deep breath to steady herself against his steeled look. "It doesn't matter," she answered him with a steady voice.

"It matters to me," he said on a low voice. "How many times did you jump before you found me?"

She looked away from him rather than answer. Her eyes fell on Mikey and she found the way to change the topic of conversation. "So, Mickey. Betting on my discomfort were we?"

He recognised the tone of voice she was using. She was deflecting. Rose didn't want to answer the Doctor's question, and truthfully, he didn't blame her. The first few jumps hadn't gone well. That was why they time limited each and every one of her jumps and made sure that she was drawn back to this side of the parallel wall.

…Which rather spectacularly negated the whole point of the jumps, which was to find the Doctor.

…Then again. He was here, wasn't he?

With that thought, Mickey looked to the man himself. "Just how did you make it here, Boss?"

The Doctor shifted his gaze from Rose to Mickey. "Pardon me?"

"Well," he continued with a shrug. "S'been four years. Rose's been leaping now for almost two of those." He paused a moment when the Doctor's face fell into horror and he looked apologetically toward Rose. Before the Doctor could speak, however, he continued. "The last jump was the first one that she managed to find you quickly enough to actually talk to you."

The Doctor seemed to have fallen deaf to Mickey's words beyond the mention of the jump timeline. "Two years, Rose?"

Rose shrugged. "That timeframe probably suggests that I did a lot more jumps than I actually did, Doctor," she replied softly. "Truthfully, it was only about twenty or so actual leaps. We really cant.."

"Twenty?" he barked.

"Give or take," she muttered dismissively. "Can't really do much more than that. It takes time to reset the cannon parameters and log all of the necessary…."

"That's twenty times through the void, Rose!"

"Well, fourty," she corrected. "Counting the return jumps."

He held out his hand with a firm flick of his fingers. "Come with me to the TARDIS," he ordered sharply. "There's no telling what that constant exposure to the void has done to you. I need to run some tests – lots of tests - make sure that your jumps haven't done any detriment to your physiology."

"Not likely," Mickey muttered under his breath. "Not given that she's-"

Rose hissed his name in warning, which stopped Mickey in his tracks.

The Doctor noted the exchange with suspicious eyes. "Mickey, please go on."

"Best not, Boss," he muttered with a duck of his head to duck underneath Rose's glare. "Don't much need to be on the receiving end of a Tyler-Slap, taa." He kept his head low and pointed at Rose. "Obviously you haven't told him, yet."

"Told me what?"

"That my friendship with Mickey Smith is teetering me on the edge of homicidal tendencies," Rose growled with her eyes flared and locked on the man in question. Her glare suddenly softened and she inhaled a deep and cleansing breath to look upon the Doctor with a smile. "Other than that, there isn't anything else that I need to tell you."

The Doctor's eyes hardened just slightly. "I don't like being lied to."

She shook her head. "I'm not lying, Doctor."

"Omission is just as good as lying, Rose," he replied in a voice that didn't even try to shield the hurt. "What's going on?" His eyes chased hers as she tried to look everywhere but at him. "Tell me," he pleaded softly.

Rose forced a smile and pressed her hands against his hearts, petting with light pats of her palms against his chest. She stared at the backs of her hands rather than at his face. "It's nothing. Just. The jumps. They weren't pleasant, Doctor. I really don't want to have to relive them, okay?" She exhaled, swallowed, and then drew in a deep breath. "The most important thing is that we're here, now, and that you want me to come back, yeah?" She blinked and finally lifted her eyes to his. "You do still want me to come with you, yeah?"

"Yeah," he replied in a breathy voice. He let his arms slide around her hips and lightly coaxed her to step closer into him. "I do."

"Then that's what's important, yeah?" The centre of her brow creased. "Not what got us to this point."

He nodded and pulled her into his chest. "Yeah." He dropped his lips into her hair when she nestled against his chest. "Yeah."

Donna, who had been strangely quiet, finally spoke up from the ground at their feet. "So. Is this guy gonna be okay, then?"

The Doctor snapped away from Rose and fell into a crouch beside Donna. He poked at Jim's shoulder. "Looks like a typical physiological response to a concentrated electrical charge." He looked up to Mickey, who had walked around them to stand beside Rose. "What kind of impact did he receive?"

Mickey looked at the now dead weapon in his hand. HE checked the manufacturer's label and shrugged. "Twelve hundred volts it says here."

The Doctor nodded and looked down at Jim and then back to Donna. "I would assume that a body mass like his would withstand taser hit better than the average bloke would." He looked back to Jim. "I know that I'm perfectly capable of handling that and more – skin and bones and all…"

"Don't you go on about your superior biology to me, mate," Donna threatened sharply.

Rose watched as the pair engaged in another round of friendly argument and had to smile with the knowledge that the Doctor was being very well taken care of in her absence. Mickey's voice in her ear made her gasp lightly, but she let her eyes and face shift so that she looked across her cheek at him. "What?"

"You're going to have to tell him, Rose."

Rose hissed out a quick and harsh sound that demanded he lower the volume of his voice. "Mickey!"

"He's going to figure it out, you know." He cleared his throat and gestured toward the Time Lord on the ground. His voice was little more than a harsh whisper. "And he'll be slightly more than upset and oncoming storm with you when he does."

"Only if I chose to go back with him, Micks."

He snorted wetly through his nose, hard enough to need to wipe at it. "Of course you're going with him." He turned his head fully toward her. "The whole reason for this project was to get you back to him. So that you and him could have your damn forever and …"

"Well. That's changed," she hissed.

"Since when?"

"Since me returning will rewrite his entire future timeline." She flicked her hair over her shoulder and sniffed hard. "However far that woman is supposed to be in his future …"

"Is still too close."

Rose nodded. "If I've learned anything from the Doctor," she sighed. "It's that timelines have to be preserved."

"Or rewritten," Mickey ventured. He flicked up a finger before she could argue that. "I love you, Rose. Always have. But this stubborn bullheaded streak of yours drives me barmy."

"Micks…"

"We both know when he finds out that there'll be no power in any of the universes that will stop him from taking you back to where you belong." He looked to the Doctor who was in mid lecture with Donna. "Which we both know is with him."

"Which is why he can't know," Rose admitted. "Because if that becomes the only reason…"

"Don't be so daft." He rolled his eyes. "The fact he's here at all means he wants you even without knowing." He wriggled his fingers to thread his through hers. "He loves you. I saw it then, I see it now."

"I know," she whimpered.

"Then tell him."

"I can't."

"If you don't, then I will," he threatened darkly. "You've been miserable these past four years without him. I can't imagine you suffering that for the rest of your life because you gave up the chance." He squeezed her hand. "Let him decide with you. Don't decide this for him."