Gift-fic for Gioia: What Friends Are For
Story: What Friends Are For
Author: wmr/ wendymr
Characters: Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, even if I'd have loved to see something like this on-screen
Summary: She's your bloody mother. You're lucky to have her!
Written for
gioiamia, who is one of the most amazing friends anyone in this world could wish to have, in appreciation of all your efforts to ensure that last weekend went smoothly and achieved its aims, while making every single author and bidder feel valued. And with thanks to yamx and
dark_aegis for superior BRing skills. 2500 words exactly.
What Friends Are For
“I’m not phonin’ her, Mickey. I’m not. An’ don’t you go doing it, either.”
He stands, hands on his hips, expression determined. “She should be here.”
“I’m all right. Leave her be, you hear?”
“Jacks, you need her. An’ it’s her responsibility. She needs to know she can’t just go swannin’ off wherever with that Doctor bloke an’ ignore the people who really matter.”
Jackie looks away, though he can still see the lines of pain on her face. “Told you, I’m all right. Let her enjoy herself. She’s only young once.”
Mickey sighs. “Thought you were worried about her out there. All those dangerous alien planets an’ the like. Thought you’d be glad of the excuse to get her home.”
Jackie’s silent for so long he thinks she’s not going to answer. Then she says, far too quietly for the determined, bolshy, caustic woman he knows, “I want her to come home because she wants to be here. Not ‘cause I’m a burden to her.”
Mouth a thin line, he turns abruptly and leaves the room. Time to make another cuppa. There’s just no arguing with Jacks when she’s like this.
***
“Mickey? What-”
“Jus’ shut up and listen.” He knows his tone’s rough and not exactly tactful, but bloody hell, if she ever bothered to phone home this wouldn’t come as a surprise to her. “You need to come home. Your mum’s had an accident.”
“What?” He can hear the terror in her voice. “She’s all right? Mickey, tell me she’s all right. How badly is she hurt?”
“Broke her leg.” That’s the worst of it. He won’t mention the injury to Jackie’s pride when she had to have her jeans cut off at the scene of the accident and she happened to be wearing underwear that had long since faded to grey. “Two days ago,” he continues.
“What?” she interrupts before he can finish his explanation. “Two days ago, an’ you’re only telling me now? What the hell do you think you were doing, Mickey Smith?”
He interrupts her tirade. “Jacks didn’t want me to phone you. Still doesn’t. Says she doesn’t want to be a burden. Shit, Rose, she’s your bloody mother. You’re lucky to have her, though you don’t exactly act like you appreciate her. Wish I still had my mum, or better still, my gran-”
“Shut it, Mickey.” She’s near to tears, he can tell, and guilt fills him. He shouldn’t have said that. Rose loves Jackie, and he knows it - just as he knows how many times she’s had to act the adult in the Tyler household, when Jackie’s had too much to drink, or gone silly over some useless toerag of a bloke. “How could she be a burden to me? Stupid cow, how could she ever think that?” He hears a choke on the other end of the line. “We’re coming, all right? Doctor says we’ll be there any minute.”
The call’s abruptly ended. He leans over the railing and starts listening for the sound of rusty old engines.
***
“Thanks, Doctor.” Her fists are clenched so tightly the nails are digging into her palms. How dare Mickey accuse her of not caring about her mum? How could her mum imagine for one second that she wouldn’t want to take care of her?
And so many questions unanswered: how did it happen? How bad a break is it? Is her mum in hospital, or at home? How has she managed so far? Has anyone been making sure she eats, sleeps, gets to the bathroom, has everything she needs?
The Doctor and Jack have been great. As soon as they heard the shock and worry in her voice, they went straight to the console. Even before she finished talking to Mickey, the Doctor signalled her that they’d be home in two minutes. And now, while the Doctor’s still piloting the TARDIS, Jack’s wrapped his arms around her and he’s holding her tightly, rocking her gently.
“Shame we can’t just take her to a hospital somewhere around the year ten thousand,” Jack says. “Instant bone-repair, completely painless. She’d be walking around again in under half an hour.”
Oh, she wishes. But the Doctor will veto it. Interfering with the natural order of things, causing paradoxes by using future technology in the past, all sorts of reasons. He’ll probably even joke that everyone’s better off with her mum confined to the flat for a while.
“Can’t,” the Doctor says predictably - though he actually sounds regretful. “Too many people know. How d’you think she’d explain her leg not being broken any more?”
“Yeah.” Jack drops a kiss on the top of her head. “She’ll be fine, Rose. Even in your time, broken bones heal. It’ll just be a few weeks.”
“Yeah, an’ she’ll be up and walking in no time,” the Doctor adds.
“She lives in a third-floor flat,” she points out. “And the lift’s broken more often than not.”
The Doctor shrugs. “We’ll just have to make sure it stays working, then.”
She stares at him. That can’t possibly mean what it sounds like. Can it?
***
The flat door opens violently, and running footsteps enter.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Mickey S-” She breaks off abruptly as the new arrival comes into view. “Rose! Oh, I’m gonna kick that bloody Mickey Smith into the middle of next week! I told him he wasn’t to phone you.”
“An’ I tore a strip off him for not tellin’ me immediately it happened,” Rose exclaims, then drops to the floor, managing to jar the sofa in the process.
Pain shoots through Jackie’s leg and she winces. “Careful, love.”
“Sorry.” Rose looks ashamed - far more than she’d need to for that bit of carelessness. “Mum, did you really think I wouldn’t want to come back? That I’d think you were a nuisance?”
Behind her, Mickey’s hovering, looking anxious yet belligerent. Well he might be worried, repeating all that stuff to Rose! But she can’t deny how good it feels to see her, all the same.
“You’re enjoyin’ yourself, love. Didn’t want to be a nuisance.”
“You’re not a nu-”
“Lift’s fixed,” a familiar and irritating voice announces. “Mind, no guarantee it’ll stay fixed with the yobs that live around here.”
“Oi!” Mickey roars. “That’s my neighbourhood you’re insultin’, Big Ears.”
“I wouldn’t let it get to you,” a strange American voice drawls. She strains to look. Ooh, who’s that? Some very good-looking bloke is standing right beside that alien so-and-so. “He’s a yob himself. Takes one to know one.”
Oh, she likes him.
***
Seems the Doctor meant what he said. Once he finds out that her mum slipped on a broken step that’s been reported to the privatised landlord but no-one ever came to fix, he sends Jack and Mickey out to do something about it. He then jiggery-pokes her mum’s phone so that she can send an emergency signal to any of them - or all four - with the push of one button, if she needs help.
Her mum’s not been sleeping, either, because the plaster’s itchy and she can’t get comfortable in bed. The Doctor brings some stuff in from the TARDIS and replaces the plaster with something that looks the same but, he says, isn’t. It’s stronger and more effective, but feels much lighter and doesn’t itch at all. She’s able to get her mum to bed then and make her lie down, and that gives her time to make a shopping-list for the blokes to take care of and get on with the laundry.
She’s gobsmacked when the Doctor and Jack actually take the shopping list without a word of complaint - though the Doctor does roll his eyes - and ask directions to the nearest supermarket. Mickey drives them, but she’s glad that he’s not the one doing the shopping, else they’d end up with a dozen frozen TV dinners, three variety packs of crisps and a case of Stella Artois.
When they come back, the Doctor’s looking disgruntled and Jack’s highly amused, though it turns out that’s only because apparently Asda don’t sell jelly-babies. He’s had to make do with fruit pastilles, which he complains aren’t the same thing at all.
By the end of the day, they’ve got a plan organised. Rose is staying in the flat, and the blokes in the TARDIS - except for Mickey, who’s going home but will drop in on his way to work. The Doctor hasn’t said how long he’ll stay, but he’s obviously not planning to leave immediately. All the same, she’s betting silently that within a couple of days he’ll have had enough of doing domestic, or too many arguments with her mum, and he and Jack will just jump a couple of months in time to come back for her.
She’ll just make the most of having them here to help while it lasts.
***
Give the Doctor his due: he knows how to handle the ASBO kids on the estate.
Mickey’s crossing the courtyard, heading over to Bucknall House after work almost a week after Rose and the other two arrived, when he hears the Doctor at his most withering - and terrifying.
“...so I’m warning you lot: I catch you around here again, let alone layin’ one finger on this lift, you’ll wish you’d never been born.” There’s a zapping sound - he must be doing something with that screwdriver thing of his - and alarmed noises from at least one of the oiks. “Me, I’m scarier than your worst enemy. You’ll be beggin’ me to hand you over to the police before I’m finished with you.”
“And that’s when I’ll take over.” That’s the bloke who calls himself Captain Jack, and for the first time Mickey starts to believe maybe he really is a captain. He certainly wouldn’t like to meet Harkness on a parade ground.
“Go on, get lost,” the Doctor says dismissively. “Not wastin’ any more of my time on you little toerags.”
Three yobs, none of them more than thirteen, emerge at a run through the open door, one in such a hurry he almost trips over his own feet. Mickey grins as they pass, then strolls in to join the Doctor and Jack. “Reckon you’ll put the police out of business.”
Jack practically snorts. “Soon as they realise we’re not around any more, they’ll be back. It’ll cost them, though.”
“Yeah.” The Doctor grins. “Set up a little surprise for them. Anyone tries to smash the control-panel again, they’ll get an electric shock. Oh, not enough to kill them,” he adds scathingly as Mickey feels his eyes widen. “Enough to make ‘em think twice about doin’ it again.”
“Nice one!” He high-fives both of them and tries not to think about the time he called the Doctor a thing.
***
She’ll say this about Rose: she knows how to pick her blokes.
The Doctor’s been great, making sure that she can sleep properly and that her cast doesn’t drive her mad, as well as getting her channels on the telly she’s never had before and simplifying the remote as well so she doesn’t need three clickers to get the programme she wants. And he’s kept the lift working. Oh, he might have disappeared a few times in that TARDIS of his - always with some excuse or other - but he’s been here when he’s needed, and even when he’s not.
He even cooks. The bloke’s an alien, and she even asked Rose if he ate grass and safety-pins - and he’s spending hours in her kitchen making breakfasts and stir-fries and even shepherd’s pie. She almost makes a crack about humble pie when he serves it up, but stops herself in case he decides not to cook for them again.
That Captain Jack’s been great too, borrowing Mickey’s car to drive her to hospital appointments - even though Rose interrogates him first about whether he can even drive. And since she’s had her walking cast, he’s been up and down the landing outside with her, and even taking her to the shops or to get her hair done when she wanted to go.
And as for Mickey, he’s here every evening after work and a lot of the weekend, keeping her company, helping the other blokes with stuff, or nagging Rose into taking a break when she’s looking tired. He’s a good lad, is Mickey. She’s lucky to have him, after the way she treated him when Rose went missing.
She’s almost better now; the cast’s gone and she only needs one crutch, and getting around’s a lot easier. They’ll be leaving soon, Rose and her blokes - and if Rose isn’t shagging at least one of them, she needs her head examined. Not that she’s gonna tell Rose that... doesn’t need any ideas, that one.
She won’t try to stop Rose leaving this time. Not just because it’s what makes her happy, though that matters - but because what she’s doing is important. Her daughter, out there in space discovering planets and meeting aliens and saving lives. It sounds insane, and no-one would ever believe her if she told them. Doesn’t matter, though. She knows.
***
They’re leaving.
He’s with Jackie in the courtyard saying goodbye again, this time with hugs all round. Jack - well, the bloke’s outrageous anyway, so he shouldn’t be surprised that he swings Jackie around (carefully) and then gives her an exaggerated kiss, grinning far too smugly as he lets her go.
Even the Doctor hugs Jackie, even if he acts like he’s about to get up close and personal with a Slitheen, and lets her go almost immediately.
“You lot’re comin’ for Sunday dinner, you hear?” Jackie says as the Doctor steps back. “At least once a month.”
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “If we must.” But he’s barely managing to hide a grin. So much for the tough-guy act. What a fraud.
While Jackie’s hugging Rose, the Doctor strolls over to him and extends a hand. “Any time you change your mind, Rickey-lad...” He nods towards the TARDIS.
Jack claps him on the shoulder. “You should come with us. You’d enjoy it.” The bloke actually waggles his eyebrows.
Mickey pretends to cringe. “No, thanks. Excitement might be a bit too much for me.”
“Oh, I don’t know...” Jack gives him a leer.
“Shut it, Captain,” the Doctor says, shaking his head. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
“You love it, really, Doctor,” Jack counters, then grins at Mickey again. “See what you’re missing?”
Rose runs over and hugs him tightly. “Thanks for phonin’ me, Mick.”
“Any time.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jackie says as she joins them. “You’re a mate.”
They’re all mates, he reflects, his arm around Jackie’s shoulders as the sound of the TARDIS fades into silence a few minutes later. The difference is... well, what’s that poem he had to learn at school? They also serve who only stand and wait?
Yeah, that’s him, the one standing and waiting - but no less useful for that.
- end
Author: wmr/ wendymr
Characters: Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, even if I'd have loved to see something like this on-screen
Summary: She's your bloody mother. You're lucky to have her!
Written for
gioiamia, who is one of the most amazing friends anyone in this world could wish to have, in appreciation of all your efforts to ensure that last weekend went smoothly and achieved its aims, while making every single author and bidder feel valued. And with thanks to yamx and
dark_aegis for superior BRing skills. 2500 words exactly.
What Friends Are For
“I’m not phonin’ her, Mickey. I’m not. An’ don’t you go doing it, either.”
He stands, hands on his hips, expression determined. “She should be here.”
“I’m all right. Leave her be, you hear?”
“Jacks, you need her. An’ it’s her responsibility. She needs to know she can’t just go swannin’ off wherever with that Doctor bloke an’ ignore the people who really matter.”
Jackie looks away, though he can still see the lines of pain on her face. “Told you, I’m all right. Let her enjoy herself. She’s only young once.”
Mickey sighs. “Thought you were worried about her out there. All those dangerous alien planets an’ the like. Thought you’d be glad of the excuse to get her home.”
Jackie’s silent for so long he thinks she’s not going to answer. Then she says, far too quietly for the determined, bolshy, caustic woman he knows, “I want her to come home because she wants to be here. Not ‘cause I’m a burden to her.”
Mouth a thin line, he turns abruptly and leaves the room. Time to make another cuppa. There’s just no arguing with Jacks when she’s like this.
***
“Mickey? What-”
“Jus’ shut up and listen.” He knows his tone’s rough and not exactly tactful, but bloody hell, if she ever bothered to phone home this wouldn’t come as a surprise to her. “You need to come home. Your mum’s had an accident.”
“What?” He can hear the terror in her voice. “She’s all right? Mickey, tell me she’s all right. How badly is she hurt?”
“Broke her leg.” That’s the worst of it. He won’t mention the injury to Jackie’s pride when she had to have her jeans cut off at the scene of the accident and she happened to be wearing underwear that had long since faded to grey. “Two days ago,” he continues.
“What?” she interrupts before he can finish his explanation. “Two days ago, an’ you’re only telling me now? What the hell do you think you were doing, Mickey Smith?”
He interrupts her tirade. “Jacks didn’t want me to phone you. Still doesn’t. Says she doesn’t want to be a burden. Shit, Rose, she’s your bloody mother. You’re lucky to have her, though you don’t exactly act like you appreciate her. Wish I still had my mum, or better still, my gran-”
“Shut it, Mickey.” She’s near to tears, he can tell, and guilt fills him. He shouldn’t have said that. Rose loves Jackie, and he knows it - just as he knows how many times she’s had to act the adult in the Tyler household, when Jackie’s had too much to drink, or gone silly over some useless toerag of a bloke. “How could she be a burden to me? Stupid cow, how could she ever think that?” He hears a choke on the other end of the line. “We’re coming, all right? Doctor says we’ll be there any minute.”
The call’s abruptly ended. He leans over the railing and starts listening for the sound of rusty old engines.
***
“Thanks, Doctor.” Her fists are clenched so tightly the nails are digging into her palms. How dare Mickey accuse her of not caring about her mum? How could her mum imagine for one second that she wouldn’t want to take care of her?
And so many questions unanswered: how did it happen? How bad a break is it? Is her mum in hospital, or at home? How has she managed so far? Has anyone been making sure she eats, sleeps, gets to the bathroom, has everything she needs?
The Doctor and Jack have been great. As soon as they heard the shock and worry in her voice, they went straight to the console. Even before she finished talking to Mickey, the Doctor signalled her that they’d be home in two minutes. And now, while the Doctor’s still piloting the TARDIS, Jack’s wrapped his arms around her and he’s holding her tightly, rocking her gently.
“Shame we can’t just take her to a hospital somewhere around the year ten thousand,” Jack says. “Instant bone-repair, completely painless. She’d be walking around again in under half an hour.”
Oh, she wishes. But the Doctor will veto it. Interfering with the natural order of things, causing paradoxes by using future technology in the past, all sorts of reasons. He’ll probably even joke that everyone’s better off with her mum confined to the flat for a while.
“Can’t,” the Doctor says predictably - though he actually sounds regretful. “Too many people know. How d’you think she’d explain her leg not being broken any more?”
“Yeah.” Jack drops a kiss on the top of her head. “She’ll be fine, Rose. Even in your time, broken bones heal. It’ll just be a few weeks.”
“Yeah, an’ she’ll be up and walking in no time,” the Doctor adds.
“She lives in a third-floor flat,” she points out. “And the lift’s broken more often than not.”
The Doctor shrugs. “We’ll just have to make sure it stays working, then.”
She stares at him. That can’t possibly mean what it sounds like. Can it?
***
The flat door opens violently, and running footsteps enter.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Mickey S-” She breaks off abruptly as the new arrival comes into view. “Rose! Oh, I’m gonna kick that bloody Mickey Smith into the middle of next week! I told him he wasn’t to phone you.”
“An’ I tore a strip off him for not tellin’ me immediately it happened,” Rose exclaims, then drops to the floor, managing to jar the sofa in the process.
Pain shoots through Jackie’s leg and she winces. “Careful, love.”
“Sorry.” Rose looks ashamed - far more than she’d need to for that bit of carelessness. “Mum, did you really think I wouldn’t want to come back? That I’d think you were a nuisance?”
Behind her, Mickey’s hovering, looking anxious yet belligerent. Well he might be worried, repeating all that stuff to Rose! But she can’t deny how good it feels to see her, all the same.
“You’re enjoyin’ yourself, love. Didn’t want to be a nuisance.”
“You’re not a nu-”
“Lift’s fixed,” a familiar and irritating voice announces. “Mind, no guarantee it’ll stay fixed with the yobs that live around here.”
“Oi!” Mickey roars. “That’s my neighbourhood you’re insultin’, Big Ears.”
“I wouldn’t let it get to you,” a strange American voice drawls. She strains to look. Ooh, who’s that? Some very good-looking bloke is standing right beside that alien so-and-so. “He’s a yob himself. Takes one to know one.”
Oh, she likes him.
***
Seems the Doctor meant what he said. Once he finds out that her mum slipped on a broken step that’s been reported to the privatised landlord but no-one ever came to fix, he sends Jack and Mickey out to do something about it. He then jiggery-pokes her mum’s phone so that she can send an emergency signal to any of them - or all four - with the push of one button, if she needs help.
Her mum’s not been sleeping, either, because the plaster’s itchy and she can’t get comfortable in bed. The Doctor brings some stuff in from the TARDIS and replaces the plaster with something that looks the same but, he says, isn’t. It’s stronger and more effective, but feels much lighter and doesn’t itch at all. She’s able to get her mum to bed then and make her lie down, and that gives her time to make a shopping-list for the blokes to take care of and get on with the laundry.
She’s gobsmacked when the Doctor and Jack actually take the shopping list without a word of complaint - though the Doctor does roll his eyes - and ask directions to the nearest supermarket. Mickey drives them, but she’s glad that he’s not the one doing the shopping, else they’d end up with a dozen frozen TV dinners, three variety packs of crisps and a case of Stella Artois.
When they come back, the Doctor’s looking disgruntled and Jack’s highly amused, though it turns out that’s only because apparently Asda don’t sell jelly-babies. He’s had to make do with fruit pastilles, which he complains aren’t the same thing at all.
By the end of the day, they’ve got a plan organised. Rose is staying in the flat, and the blokes in the TARDIS - except for Mickey, who’s going home but will drop in on his way to work. The Doctor hasn’t said how long he’ll stay, but he’s obviously not planning to leave immediately. All the same, she’s betting silently that within a couple of days he’ll have had enough of doing domestic, or too many arguments with her mum, and he and Jack will just jump a couple of months in time to come back for her.
She’ll just make the most of having them here to help while it lasts.
***
Give the Doctor his due: he knows how to handle the ASBO kids on the estate.
Mickey’s crossing the courtyard, heading over to Bucknall House after work almost a week after Rose and the other two arrived, when he hears the Doctor at his most withering - and terrifying.
“...so I’m warning you lot: I catch you around here again, let alone layin’ one finger on this lift, you’ll wish you’d never been born.” There’s a zapping sound - he must be doing something with that screwdriver thing of his - and alarmed noises from at least one of the oiks. “Me, I’m scarier than your worst enemy. You’ll be beggin’ me to hand you over to the police before I’m finished with you.”
“And that’s when I’ll take over.” That’s the bloke who calls himself Captain Jack, and for the first time Mickey starts to believe maybe he really is a captain. He certainly wouldn’t like to meet Harkness on a parade ground.
“Go on, get lost,” the Doctor says dismissively. “Not wastin’ any more of my time on you little toerags.”
Three yobs, none of them more than thirteen, emerge at a run through the open door, one in such a hurry he almost trips over his own feet. Mickey grins as they pass, then strolls in to join the Doctor and Jack. “Reckon you’ll put the police out of business.”
Jack practically snorts. “Soon as they realise we’re not around any more, they’ll be back. It’ll cost them, though.”
“Yeah.” The Doctor grins. “Set up a little surprise for them. Anyone tries to smash the control-panel again, they’ll get an electric shock. Oh, not enough to kill them,” he adds scathingly as Mickey feels his eyes widen. “Enough to make ‘em think twice about doin’ it again.”
“Nice one!” He high-fives both of them and tries not to think about the time he called the Doctor a thing.
***
She’ll say this about Rose: she knows how to pick her blokes.
The Doctor’s been great, making sure that she can sleep properly and that her cast doesn’t drive her mad, as well as getting her channels on the telly she’s never had before and simplifying the remote as well so she doesn’t need three clickers to get the programme she wants. And he’s kept the lift working. Oh, he might have disappeared a few times in that TARDIS of his - always with some excuse or other - but he’s been here when he’s needed, and even when he’s not.
He even cooks. The bloke’s an alien, and she even asked Rose if he ate grass and safety-pins - and he’s spending hours in her kitchen making breakfasts and stir-fries and even shepherd’s pie. She almost makes a crack about humble pie when he serves it up, but stops herself in case he decides not to cook for them again.
That Captain Jack’s been great too, borrowing Mickey’s car to drive her to hospital appointments - even though Rose interrogates him first about whether he can even drive. And since she’s had her walking cast, he’s been up and down the landing outside with her, and even taking her to the shops or to get her hair done when she wanted to go.
And as for Mickey, he’s here every evening after work and a lot of the weekend, keeping her company, helping the other blokes with stuff, or nagging Rose into taking a break when she’s looking tired. He’s a good lad, is Mickey. She’s lucky to have him, after the way she treated him when Rose went missing.
She’s almost better now; the cast’s gone and she only needs one crutch, and getting around’s a lot easier. They’ll be leaving soon, Rose and her blokes - and if Rose isn’t shagging at least one of them, she needs her head examined. Not that she’s gonna tell Rose that... doesn’t need any ideas, that one.
She won’t try to stop Rose leaving this time. Not just because it’s what makes her happy, though that matters - but because what she’s doing is important. Her daughter, out there in space discovering planets and meeting aliens and saving lives. It sounds insane, and no-one would ever believe her if she told them. Doesn’t matter, though. She knows.
***
They’re leaving.
He’s with Jackie in the courtyard saying goodbye again, this time with hugs all round. Jack - well, the bloke’s outrageous anyway, so he shouldn’t be surprised that he swings Jackie around (carefully) and then gives her an exaggerated kiss, grinning far too smugly as he lets her go.
Even the Doctor hugs Jackie, even if he acts like he’s about to get up close and personal with a Slitheen, and lets her go almost immediately.
“You lot’re comin’ for Sunday dinner, you hear?” Jackie says as the Doctor steps back. “At least once a month.”
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “If we must.” But he’s barely managing to hide a grin. So much for the tough-guy act. What a fraud.
While Jackie’s hugging Rose, the Doctor strolls over to him and extends a hand. “Any time you change your mind, Rickey-lad...” He nods towards the TARDIS.
Jack claps him on the shoulder. “You should come with us. You’d enjoy it.” The bloke actually waggles his eyebrows.
Mickey pretends to cringe. “No, thanks. Excitement might be a bit too much for me.”
“Oh, I don’t know...” Jack gives him a leer.
“Shut it, Captain,” the Doctor says, shaking his head. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
“You love it, really, Doctor,” Jack counters, then grins at Mickey again. “See what you’re missing?”
Rose runs over and hugs him tightly. “Thanks for phonin’ me, Mick.”
“Any time.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jackie says as she joins them. “You’re a mate.”
They’re all mates, he reflects, his arm around Jackie’s shoulders as the sound of the TARDIS fades into silence a few minutes later. The difference is... well, what’s that poem he had to learn at school? They also serve who only stand and wait?
Yeah, that’s him, the one standing and waiting - but no less useful for that.
- end