Forgotten (4/5)

[amberfocus]

A/N:  Yeah, it kind of morphed into five chapters and it's possible it'll go to six chapters.  Mickey had some things he needed to say.  Recognizable dialog is from the episode The Girl in the Fireplace.

                                                                       Chapter Four: Return

“If he was gonna find a way back he’d have done it by now,” Mickey says eying her sitting stubbornly in front of him. She has come onto the command deck of the space ship the same way she’s done every morning since the Doctor and the time window disappeared into 18th century France and taken up residence, her back against the hull where she’d last seen him.

 

“He’ll find a way, Mickey,” she says. He shakes his head at what he sees as her blindness but she doesn’t care.

“How long we gonna wait for ‘im?” he demands.

Rose’s head snaps up and her eyes focus sharply on Mickey. The words as long as it takes are on the tip of her tongue but then she notices how haggard he looks, how scared. “A week, Mickey,” she tells him. “We’ll wait a week. If he hasn’t found his way back to us by then, you can hit the recall button and go home.”

“What about you?” he asks.

“He’s coming back to me,” she repeats as she does every day. “I’ll wait until he does.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Rose. His time machine is here! There is no way back! He’s stuck there, with that woman, and he’s not coming back. I heard what she said to you, Rose. Don’t think I wasn’t listening.”

“I don’t know what you think you heard--.”

“He kissed her. He kissed another woman when he had you back here, pregnant and waiting for him.” Rose opens her mouth but Mickey charges heedlessly forward. “Or maybe this is what he does. The Doctor and Rose and the piece on the side at every planet or ship you go to,” he snaps. “He certainly fawned all over Sarah Jane and you told me about that tree woman first time out--.”

“Shut it, Mickey. The Doctor’s not like that. He flirts, but he doesn’t cheat!”

“And kissing’s not cheating, then?” Mickey asks. “Because you sure as hell thought it was when it was me and Tricia Delaney.”

“Bit more than kissing going on then,” Rose says. “And until I hear it from the Doctor that he kissed her, it’s just her word for it. And she could have said anything just to hurt me. She’d fallen in love with him and she wanted him. I could see it in her eyes and she knew that I—that I was…am, that I am important to him. Your Tricia Delaney was the exact same way.”

“Yeah, but she had cause, didn’t she?”

“Shut up. The Doctor—the Doctor wouldn’t do that.”

Mickey sighs. “I’m going to go take another look round this rust bucket.” He strides to the edge of the room then stops. “Rose, I know this hurts. I know it hurts to think you might never see ‘im again. I know you love him. And I think in his own way he loves you, too, but the Doctor’s bigger than all that, isn’t he? He’s got worlds to save and time lines to keep from imploding and maybe the two of us, maybe you, are never going to be as important to him as all of that.”

“Mickey,” Rose says warningly.

“You need to face facts, Rose. If he doesn’t get himself back here by the end of the week, I will drag you into the TARDIS kicking and screaming if I have to and make you go back,” he insists. His voice softens. “You spend so much of your life worrying about what other people want or need, but you gotta think about that baby now. He’s not coming back and you can’t raise a child here.”

Mickey walks away and Rose’s anger at him slowly fades. She doesn’t want to think about his words, doesn’t want to think that he’s probably right.



When every piece of seduction in her repertoire fails her the Doctor is relieved to think that Reinette has finally given up. It has only been a couple of days but he knows now that even though his head was turned by the woman there is no way he could have anything real with her. Not because of who she is, not because she is mistress to the king, but because his hearts are irreovocably locked onto Rose Tyler. He stands at the window, a glass of wine in his hand, as he stares up at the stars. Somewhere, somewhen in the future, she is waiting for him.

“You know all their names, don’t you?” Reinette says softly from behind him. “I saw that in your mind. The name of every star.”

“Oh, they’re just names. Titles. Titles don’t tell you anything,” he shrugs.

“Like the Doctor?”

“Like Madame de Pompadour?” he returns a bit cheekily, able to relax with her now that she’s given up the effort of getting him into her bed. She laughs.

“I have often wished to see those stars a little closer. Just as you have, I think.”

“There was a time,” he says wistfully.

“In saving me you trapped yourself. Did you know that would happen?” she wants to know.

He can’t look at her because it is his biggest regret that he did know that and that he came anyway. Rose had told him to, but from the moment the clockwork drones had ceased to function, the finality of the choice he had made had settled onto his shoulders and the loss of everything he’d ever wanted with Rose had nearly destroyed him. “Um-hmm, pretty much,” he mutters.

“Yet still you came.”

He finally turns his gaze to hers. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Catch me doing that again.”

“Why did you come? It is clear that you do not wish to bed me. Clearer still that you love the girl you left to save me. Why are you here if not for me?” she asks. He doesn’t answer her. “There were many doors between my world and yours. Can you not use one of the others?”

“No, when the mirror broke the shock would have severed all the links with the ship. There will be a few more broken mirrors and torn tapestries around here, I’m afraid. Wherever there was a time window.”

“Is that all that prevents you from going back? A severed link that occurred at the time?” she wants to know.

“That’s rather enough, I think,” the Doctor says a bit grumpily.

“What of a link that was severed beforehand? One that would not, as you said, have suffered the same shock?” she asks him.

“What are you talking about?” he asks afraid to hope. He knows the woman is clever and that her mind works in ways both devious and glorious and the tendrils of hope begin to wrap around him. He shoves them down furiously.

“I think I would have enjoyed the slow path,” she says.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” he says sadly.

“Oh, aren’t you?” She puts down her wine glass. “Take my hand.” Her hand is shaking as she extends it to him and he takes it and she leads him into her bedroom and over to the fireplace. That wild flaring of hope is back within him as he sees what stands before them.

“It’s not a copy. It’s the original. I had it moved here and was exact in every detail.”

“The fireplace.” And he knows then that this woman is indeed brilliant and that she may have just saved his soul, if not his life. He drops her hand and steps away from her. “The fireplace from your old bedroom.”

“It appears undamaged. Do you think it will still work?” she asks.

“You broke the bond with the ship when you moved it. Which means it was offline when the mirror broke. That’s what saved it,” he explains. “The link is basically physical and it’s still physically here. Which might just mean if I’m lucky, if I’m very, very, very, very lucky… Hah!”

“What?” He glances at her and sees the distress on her face but he can’t help the joy that surges through him.

“Loose connection.” He whips out his sonic screwdriver and reattaches the link. “Need to get a man in.” He thwacks the mantel of the fireplace and the sound of the link coming back online surges into the room. He steps onto the pedestal and gives Reinette the first real smile he’s had in days. “Wish me luck!”

Her face shatters. “No.” His hearts fall only momentarily. He knows it hurts her but he can’t care about it, not right now. Not when he is going back to Rose and their unborn child. Not when he finally has his future back.



Rose hears the footsteps echoing loudly through the corridors as trainer clad feet come running down the catwalk. Mickey is sitting across the room from her and she knows as her heart leaps into her throat what that means. She jumps to her feet as the Doctor barrels into the room and into her arms. He picks her up and swings her around joyfully and then presses his lips urgently to hers. Rose kisses him back and she can feel it when the tears hit her face and at first she isn’t sure if they are his or hers but as he pulls away finally she can tell they are hers by the mascara trails left on his face. She wipes them away and onto her jeans.

“How long did you wait?” he asks and there is just a tinge of fear in his voice.

It is enough to make her lie to him even though she knows she shouldn’t. “Five and a half hours,” she says quickly before Mickey can tell him the truth. She hears the man gasp from the other side of the room and can only hope that the Doctor doesn’t.

“Right, always wait five and a half hours. All right into the TARDIS with you.”

“How’d you get back?” Rose asks.

“I’ll explain in a second. Go on.” He hustles them into the ship in front of them and eagerly sets the controls, more than ready to leave this place behind them forever. As he sends the ship hurtling into the Vortex Rose asks him again how he got back.

He smiles his manic smile at her and says, “Oh, it was Reinette. She’s brilliant, that woman. Her mind is one of the cleverest and most devious I’ve ever encountered and she figured it out—Rose, where are you going? Rose? Rose!”

Ch. 5:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/213587.html