Chapter 10

"Is there a reason we're here?"

Rose shrugged as she wandered round Henriks department store, looking at everything. She found it strange that she'd once worked here; it felt like another life, another person. She was a different Rose Tyler these days, with a new home, a father, two kids, a new job and a broken heart. She had to smile ironically at that; she remembered when she first began work at Henriks, she'd thought her heart would never heal because of that scum Jimmy Stone. Twenty years later and Rose really knew what heartache was.

"What are you smiling for?" Mickey turned to her. He was trying to be helpful but was really being annoying; Rose was feeling more and more like her old self again each second, and all she could keep thinking was Mickey the Idiot.

"No reason," she replied. She stopped. "This is stupid, he's not here."

"Well where else could he be?"

She shrugged.

"Rose!"

"Well, how am I supposed to know?" she demanded crossly. "I haven't seen him for nineteen years, we don't exactly have a meeting place in mind!"

Mickey glanced around at the few stares they were being given by Saturday morning shoppers. "Keep your voice down."

Rose rolled her eyes impetuously. "Oh, come on! There's nothing here." She pushed past several people on the escalators as they headed back outside, her blonde hair flying out behind her, and Mickey struggling to keep up. She glanced over her shoulder several times in irritation. She should have come on her own; he was just slowing her down. There was too much to do and too little time. She needed to find him wherever he was and deal with everything finding him would throw at her, and be back at home before the twins realized that their mum had abandoned them on their eighteenth birthday.

"So where now?" Mickey asked as he caught up with her, breathless and panting. "Any other bright ideas?"

"I'm not a child you know!" Rose snapped. "You don't need to be so patronizing!"

"I'm not! It's just…" Mickey sighed heavily. "Rose, this is crazy, it's never going to work. We've trawled half of London looking for him, we've been everywhere you can think of…" He shrugged. "So what are we going to do now?"

Rose leaned back against the wall of the building, hooking her thumbs in the belt loops on her jeans. She closed her eyes slowly and shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted softly. "I don't know what else we can do."

Mickey relented towards his old friend. "We haven't tried everywhere yet, there's plenty more places he could be. I mean, it might not even be London he manages… you always used to say he was a bit useless at flying the TARDIS. He could be anywhere… we'll just have to think a bit further afield, broaden our horizons a bit." He nodded. "He'll be here somewhere, Rose, I know it, and we'll find him, we just need-"

"Mickey, please. Thank you for coming with me today, for entertaining whatever stupid idea I had. Now it's time to go home. The kids will wonder where I am." She forced a smile onto her face, but it couldn't stick easily and wobbled around. "Come on." She slipped her arm through his companionably. "You're a good friend, Mick. Better than I deserve."

"Probably," Mickey agreed, smiling. He couldn't decide if it was a good thing that Rose was coming back to hand so meekly. The fight seemed gone out of her again, as she walked by his side. It was the Rose they'd all grown used to here, quiet, a worrier, helpless. Now he thought about it, they weren't very positive qualities. However difficult she'd been lately, at least she'd been awake and alive and living her own life, instead of relying on Jon and Janie to provide some structure for her day. Mickey wondered what would happen when those two left home; Rose, this Rose, would be lost without them. Maybe it was wrong to be trying to make her go home now, maybe they should keep looking. She needed something.

Rose felt she needed something too, but she was at a loss as to what. Walking down the street, passing dozens of people of all kinds, she wondered why it was that she couldn't let go of things that had happened twenty years ago. Of all the people here, she couldn't have been the only one to have loved and lost, and maybe that was better than never loving at all. At least, that's what all the old songs said. Twenty years was a long time to grieve, to mourn the loss of something that had barely even started. It hadn't been the greatest love affair; it hadn't even really been a love affair, just one night. But the love had been there. And yet, that must have been true for thousands of people in London today, Rose wondered what it was that made her unable to move on. She'd tried so many times to find someone new, to move on with her life, but it kept coming back to this, her heart breaking again as she realized he wasn't coming back. Maybe this time she'd listen to her head instead of her heart, and go and get on with what she should be doing: being a fantastic mother.