Chapter Ten: Sunshine Fades Away

Rose pushed her mug of tea to the side discreetly, listening as her mum rattled on about this and that, things that had been going on around the neighborhood. Bad enough she'd screwed up her face in disgust the moment she tasted what had once been her favorite brand of biscuit, but now she didn't like her tea made the way she'd liked it for the nineteen years she'd lived with her mum? That wouldn't go over well at all. No sense trying to assure her mum that she was still the same person if she was going to constantly be doing things that proved she wasn't.

The Doctor had abandoned her to her mother-daughter reunion when it was clear that her mum wasn't going to be weird about the situation, saying that he needed to check on the Tardis. Like hell he did. The Tardis was just fine. Didn't need any tinkering or upgrading or anything. The Doctor just didn't want to be hanging out with her mum right now.

She couldn't say that she blamed him. Not really. Her mum seemed to be accepting it as well as she could — except for these odd looks she kept tossing at Rose every now and then — but Rose wasn't taking it so well herself, in the end. Being here, in this flat, made her realize just how much she had changed. Everything about the place — the things that had once made her feel comfortable and 'at home' — now seemed tacky and contrived. She hated that she felt that way, like she was better than this. Because she wasn't. She was still Rose Tyler.

Wasn't she?

"You all right?"

Rose nodded slightly in response to her mother's question, trying to offer up a reassuring smile to say that she was fine, even if it was a complete lie. Her mother frowned, mouth opening to force the issue —

A knock on the door was all it took to save her.

"Oh, that'll be Mickey," her mum said, eyes flitting in the general direction of the hallway as she stood up.

"Mickey?" Rose tried not to sound horrified at the prospect. Really, she did.

"Didn't I tell you? Called him while you were washin' up."

She didn't get it. Didn't get the reason that she wouldn't want to see Mickey just yet. It was one thing for her mum to take what had happened in stride, another thing for her to just cast a blind eye to it and go on like nothing had happened. Mickey didn't know about this. She was going to have to explain it to him and… well, she just couldn't see that going well at all.

For one moment, the idea of a temper tantrum sounded very, very good. Then it passed and Rose exhaled a nervous breath. The front door was being opened and, God, she could hear his voice. Same old Mickey, loud as usual.

His eyes met hers almost immediately as he stepped into the living room from the hall. He blinked, frowning. She knew she didn't look that different and here was the test of it. Would he recognize her at all?

"Rose?" he asked, stepping forward. "What happened to you?"

She laughed softly, anxiety making her stomach churn nauseatingly.

"Picked up that whole Regeneration trick when I was with the Doctor, I guess," she said with another tiny laugh, like it was nothing but one big joke.

Finally, after silence that lasted a good minute or two, Mickey spoke again, "You what?"

"Regenerated," she repeated. "I…sort of died. And then changed and now I'm good as new, see?"

She took a step forward, only to be brought up short when Mickey in turn took a step back. Hurt wove its way through her, gripping her heart in a vice-like hold. Of course it'd be like this. Wasn't like Mickey had ever really liked the Doctor. She could remember the way he'd been when the Doctor'd first asked her along. A 'thing', he'd said.

That's what she was to him now.

"So — what? You're an alien now?"

Rose looked away, unable to bear the accusation and thinly veiled disgust in his eyes. She nodded once, not trusting herself to speak.

"I can't believe this," Mickey exclaimed. "First, you run off with him. Now you go changing who you are and being like him? You're not even human anymore," he said in a way that made it sound like not being human might just be a fate worse than death. "What's next, you tell us you ain't never comin' home again? That you can't bear the sight of all us poor little humans?"

The words hit Rose like a slap to the cheek. In one moment she felt her sadness turn to anger and she looked back at the man she'd once been silly enough to think that she loved. "Hadn't planned on it until right this second, no."

"Rose! No!" her mother cried out, anguished. Rose wanted to comfort her, console her, but she couldn't look away from Mickey. It was like a train wreck, these emotions inside of her. The train was going to crash and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. She was going to say things that were hurtful, she knew it. Things that could never be taken back but that sounded so right in her head.

"That what you want, Mickey?" she said, feeling her lips curl up into what she knew had to be a sneer. Not something she'd done before as her old self, and she could see that Mickey was taken aback by the surprise that colored his face for just a moment. "You want me to leave this flat and never come back? Never see me again? Oh, right — maybe I should have just died and then we wouldn't be having this bloody asinine conversation. But then you'd have the memories, right? Of little human me. Poor little Rose — died trying to save the man she really loved. Died because she did what no one was supposed to do. But that would be better, right? A dead human Rose rather than a living different Rose. That's what you'd want?"

She was shaking by the time the words stopped spilling from her mouth. In her head, she could hear them repeating over and over again; harsh accusations that felt oh so true. A bit mean, this incarnation, with a touch of cruelty. Whiny, sexy, and cruel. She'd certainly struck the quirky trait jackpot.

Mickey was looking at her now like he didn't know her and, for the first time since he'd walked through the door, she could sympathize — because she barely knew herself. Difference was, she wanted to know herself and Mickey didn't care to even try, apparently.

And it hurt. God, it hurt.

"I'll come back to visit soon, Mum," she muttered with a shake of her head. If she didn't get out of here she was going to break down in front of Mickey and spoil the lovely tearing into she'd just given him.

"Rose —"

"I need to go," Rose pled when her mother put a hand on her arm to stop her. She leaned into her mother's touch for a moment and then pulled away. "I won't stay away too long. Promise."

Her mother nodded, eyes brimming with tears that Rose couldn't even bring herself to care about, and Mickey just stood there — still looking horrified. Whether it was because of her in general or what she'd said to him, Rose didn't really know or care.

The last thing she heard as the door to the flat shut and she started walking away was the sound of her mum laying into Mickey for being so stupid. Even knowing that her mum was giving him the verbal lashing he so rightly deserved.

She stepped into the Tardis.

"Rose? What's wrong?"

Rose shook her head. "Don't worry 'bout it. I'll be all right."

"You sure about that?"

She nodded and forced herself to smile through the pain of rejection. "Let's get out of here, 'kay?"

END CHAPTER