Pride: Chapter Three

[amberfocus]

Title:  Pride (3/?)
Series:  Moments in Darkness
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Ten/Rose, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler
Genre:  Romance, Angst, Baby!fic
Rating:  Teen
Beta: amyo67
Summary:  Things still aren't right between the Doctor and Rose after his betrayal with Reinette and he fears they never will be.  Rose wants to trust him again for the sake of the baby, but she's not sure she can.  Tired of being a helpless observer in their love life, Mickey decides it's time to move on.  Thirteenth in the Moments in Darkness series and follows on from Forgotten.  Set after Girl in the Fireplace. Here's a link to the first story in the series:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/36302.html.  All stories are now linked to the following story in the series.

Ch. 1:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/358910.html  Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/359795.html

Chapter Three: Certain Truths
 

“So you’ve forgiven him,” Mickey says. He had walked in on the end of their moment together and had promptly turned around and left them to their privacy, but he’d had to bite his tongue to keep from putting in his opinion. He finds Rose a few hours later in the garden. She is cutting the dying heads off of flowers, a task that seems to center her and help her gain her equilibrium when she’s not feeling quite herself. She’s going after them with a vengeance, but then she hasn’t been herself in weeks.

“I think so,” she says. “I mean, I’m not running back into his arms any time soon—.”

“Looked like that was exactly where you were to me,” Mickey comments.

“Fine. I’m not running back into his bed anytime soon,” she says. “But I am committed to working things out with him.”

“You don’t have to. I’d take care of you. You know that,” Mickey says. “I’d raise his child.”

“I know that, but I don’t want you to take care of me, Mickey. I want you to live your own life, find a woman who loves you as much as…” She trails off.

“As much as you used to?” he asks pointedly.

“More,” she says and sighs. “I never loved you as much as you deserved and I’m sorry for that. You deserve more than what you can have here, Mickey.”

“You deserve more than what you can have here,” he parrots back at her.

Rose bites her lip and then turns to face her former lover. “We’re gonna have this baby together, Mick. The Doctor and me. You know that. A half alien, half human baby. I need to stay with him for her sake and that’s gonna be easier if he and I are not fighting all the time.”

“Staying with him for the sake of the baby isn’t right.”

“It’s not wrong, either,” she says, “even if that was all I wanted. If that was the only choice I was making, then I’d have to think harder than this. But it’s not. I’m choosing him, too. I still hurt from what he did, but he’s sorry. More sorry than you can imagine. And he didn’t sleep with her. He did stop himself from going beyond that one brief kiss. He’s promised me it’ll never happen again and I believe him. I can’t keep punishing him for—.”

“For breaking your heart?” Mickey asks.

“He didn’t mean to and I just…I can’t imagine my life without him. I don’t want to. I’ve made my choice, Mickey. I’m not just doing this so she can grow up with two parents. I’m doing it because…well, because…”

“Because you still love him.”

She swallows hard and shrugs. “It’s not going to be easy. I know that. But the Doctor and I have gotten through bad things before. Bad things that I’ve done, like getting him killed. Twice. First with the Reapers and then with Bad Wolf. He forgave me for that. I have to forgive him for this.”

“I’m leaving, then. I’m going to ask the Doctor to take me home. I’m not willing to watch you self-destruct and I can’t keep chasing after you, Rose, on the odd hope that maybe you’ll get fed up with him and see what a good guy I am.”

“I do see what a good guy you are, Mickey. You’re amazing.”

“Just not amazing enough,” he says bitterly.

“Mickey, you are so much better than me.”

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever doubt yourself, Rose Tyler. You’re just as good as me, and what’s more you’re just as good as him! Better than, really.”

“Then why did he kiss her? If I’m so good, why did he kiss her?” Rose demands, frustrated tears waterfalling over her lower lashes to stream down her cheeks.

“I don’t know.” It’s all Mickey can say in the face of her tears.

Rose turns back to her flowers. “I do. It’s ‘cause she was better than me.” She wipes angrily at her eyes, shoving the tears impatiently from her face. “Beautiful and smart and cultured. Bet he’d never call her a stupid ape. He should have brought her along with him instead of me! He’d never be disappointed in her. She’d never let him down. She was perfect for him and I’m just…nothing!”

“No,” says a new voice behind them. Rose spins to see the Doctor. “No, Rose. You are not nothing. You are everything. Nine hundred years of time and space and you’re the best I’ve ever found. And from every moment onward, I’m going to make sure you know that.”

Rose sniffles and turns to the Doctor. “What are you doing here?” she asks him accusingly. “I thought you had to do repairs.”

“I was,” the Doctor says, “but I asked the old girl to keep an eye on you, make sure you were okay. She said you were crying so…” He shrugs. “I came.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Mickey’s leaving. He wants to go home. He’s had enough.”

The Doctor turns dark eyes on Mickey who nods. “Okay,” says the Doctor quietly. “Pack your things. I’ll take you home.” Mickey nods and leaves them alone together again.




They watch Mickey go and it seems like it takes forever for their eyes to meet again. “You sure that’s the only reason you were crying?” he asks. “That you’re losing Mickey?”

“No,” Rose admits. “I’m just…sad. Hormones and…everything.”

“Everything being Reinette,” he says.

“Yeah. I keep trying to get past it, I do, Doctor, but,” she shakes her head, “I just don’t understand why.”

“I don’t understand why either,” he says. He rubs his hand over his face. “I’ve felt so lost since I regenerated, Rose. Like I don’t even know who I am anymore. You always anchored me in the last incarnation. I held fast to that, but now…it’s like without you there to hold my hand I’ve become adrift.”

“But I was right here!”

“But you haven’t been. Not really. Not accepting me, not loving me. I just wanted…I don’t know. I wish I’d never been so thoughtless, so careless with your heart. We were so close to being good again and I just…I ruined everything.” He sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. “Do you want to go home, too? See Jackie, maybe take some time to get our heads on straight again?”

“I don’t know. I love my mum, but sometimes she just makes things worse and I think we’re doing a good enough job of making things worse all on our own.”

The Doctor smiled wryly. “Yeah, not too good at sorting out the domestics, are we?”

“Never have been, ‘cept in bed,” Rose says. She bites her lip and reaches out, touches his lapel, straightening it, before dropping her hand back down. “Do you still want me, Doctor?”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he says immediately. “Not now, not ever.”

“No, not do you want me here. Do you still want me? As a woman? You said things change when you regenerate and maybe that’s the problem, that you just aren’t quite the same in that regard and—.”

“I want you,” he says. “Trust me, Rose, that hasn’t changed. So please don’t ever worry that I’ve stopped wanting you that way. It was…well, it was why I pulled away from her so fast. I didn’t feel anything for her when she kissed me. All I thought about was that she wasn’t you, and that it was your touch I needed, your kiss. It took my brain a few seconds to realize that. I wish it hadn’t taken as long as it did. I wish it had never happened.”

Rose sighs. “Me, too.”

“What about you?” he asks and there’s almost shyness in his words. “Do you,” he runs a hand the length of his body, “still want me?”

“I’m not ready to—.”

“I know that,” he interrupts impatiently. “But are you even still attracted?”

Rose closes her eyes, a blush coloring her cheeks. “Yeah. More so than I should ever let you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

His lips brush hers and her eyes fly open in surprise. She doesn’t pull away from him, can’t help but kiss him back. He kisses the same way he always has. The last time he kissed her, in the infirmary, she didn’t really notice that. Now she does and it sets her stomach to fluttering, creating little sensations like butterflies doing somersaults. She pauses briefly to whisper, “This isn’t fair.”

“I know,” he says against her lips. “I’m done being fair.” His hands grip her hips, pulling her closer and she gives up even the pretense of protest, instead wrapping her arms around him. She doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts and she isn’t the one to break it when it’s done. She blinks at him trying not to show all of the emotions and desires that are running rampant through her mind and body.

He leans his forehead against hers in a gesture familiar, yet strange coming from this version of him. “We’re going to be okay,” he tells her and for the first time since he changed she believes him.

It’s odd that though he’s no longer kissing her, she’s still feeling the soft butterfly movements in her belly. Then the movements are no longer quite so soft and she suddenly realizes just what it is that’s happening. “The baby!” Rose gasps.

“What? What’s wrong?” the Doctor asks quickly pulling back. Rose just shakes her head and grabs his hand, placing it flat against her lightly rounded stomach.

“Wait for it,” Rose says. He frowns, concentrating hard. “There,” she says as her stomach moves on its own. “Did you feel that?”

He nods and a look of awe and wonder crosses his face. “She’s kicking.” He stands there holding his hands on her belly for several minutes.

“I need to sit down,” Rose says after a while, breaking the silence that has fallen between them. “Or rather lay down. I’m tired.”

“Okay,” he says, his hands reluctantly leaving her. He takes her hand in his and she doesn’t pull it away. He leads her to her bedroom and tenderly tucks her in. He sits with her until she falls asleep and then slowly, reluctantly he leaves her to dreamland.

Ch. 4: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/361173.html