Chapter Three: Mickey
Author's Note: I am SO sorry this took so long, I am still not happy with it but here is the result of a lot of screaming and headbanging. This will be part one of Mickey, as I think the following scene should be his as well. Also I didn't realize that Mickey was going to be so hard, he's in a very difficult position at this point and it was incredibly hard to write!
The realization hit him hard. He spent all of his time waiting for her to come back. He dropped whatever he was doing to come when she called; he made sure he was ready to stop wherever he was and join her. He had this dream that Rose was going to come back one day and announce she was staying for good. He scowled. That's what it was, a dream. The two stood behind him, he finally understood that. He hadn't come aboard the TARDIS expecting to travel to planets and see the universe. It had always been about Rose, and he realized how silly that was. They had been over for a while, and he'd just refused to see it. Now he stood aboard a spaceship centuries away from home, and he wished he'd never left.
Mickey felt suddenly hollow and alone. Who was he without her? Without either of them? He had no future now. He had no steady job or career, and hadn't made an effort to leave the Powell Estates. All he knew of life was helping her, being their tin dog. He needed to move on, become his own person, but he didn't know how. The only life he knew of was with Rose.
She stood to his left, pale and deathly silent. His fear was placated by merely looking at her. Strange as she appeared to him, it was comforting to have her familiar face there. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, or if she even registered the picture of the ballroom in front of them. He used to be able to tell when she was scared or worried, now he only saw the stony mask she put before him. She stood before him, strong and silent, as much a mystery as the robots that inhabited the spaceship.
The Doctor was fidgeting around the console behind him. He had heard so many good things about this Doctor, and he couldn't help but hate him a little. He looked briefly at him, surprised to see him quiet. He hadn't spoken a word since he'd mentioned the time window, and he moved about the console frantically. Mickey realized then, that the Doctor didn't know what to do. He stared in shock, fear creeping back into him. This was the man that knew everything, and now he was throwing himself at a pointless task, in order to avoid the inevitable. He didn't want to choose between them and Reinette. This surprised him. The Doctor was all about saving people, being the hero. This time something held him back.
Mickey looked back at Rose, knowing exactly what held him back. He'd been so naive, thinking he could come aboard and try to recover his relationship with Rose. Part of him was upset. Angry that she just ditched him for this fascinating and dangerous man. But he had been so blind, so innocent to what was going on around him.
He watched as Rose went over to the Doctor, her face hard and unreadable. He made his decision in that moment. He'd spent enough of the past two years waiting for Rose to come back, he needed to be his own man. He had known, deep down that she wasn't going to come back for him, but he'd held out hope. In a moment of unspoken communication the Doctor and Rose understood each other, and Mickey frowned as the Doctor stepped away. They understood each other, completed each other, something he and Rose never had. He pressed his lips together. The next stop was where he was going to get off, didn't matter where. He'd make his own life from now on, he was going to be his own man.