keep_counting | Fic: fractured moonlight (Doctor Who)

Title: fractured moonlight
Characters/Pairings: Rose/Mickey, Rose/Jimmy Stone, Rose/Nine, Rose/Ten, Donna Noble
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers up to S3 of New!Who, angst
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Angst
Word-count: 670
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
Summary: Two men who fell in love with Rose Tyler and one who waited until it was too late.

Andrew Jones is buying a used bicycle for his daughter, and Mickey Smith knows because he works with him.

He also knows that the girl who’s selling it to him is pretty in that too-blonde way, eyes heavy with make-up and t-shirt too tight for someone her age. Her jeans are baggy though, and her trainers are muddy from her walk and she smirks at him like she think he’s cool, sun shining on his grease-stained hands as he works on the car beside him.

”Hi,” she says and he doesn’t know if he should just nod at her or maybe get up and talk and bangs his head against the metal-frame for his trouble. She laughs and introduces herself as Rose, and he trips when he tries to walk over to her. That just makes her laugh harder.

Mickey Smith falls on his head and falls in love.

Jimmy Stone is leaning against the dirty wall in the too-cramped bar, smoking like his life depended on it, and of course he is a gentleman and offers her one, the little blonde thing standing next to him.

”Thank-you,” she says and he thinks she’s tried this maybe once before, from the way she holds the cigarette and the way she drags the smoke into her lungs and blows it back out, and he thinks that her eyes are pretty, big and brown and glassy from the night.

”So, did you like the music?” he asks her, and it doesn’t really matter what she says, he’ll still think she’s petite and fine and when he smiles she smiles back, oh so widely.

”I did,” she says, a little too quickly. ”Yeah, it’s good.”

Jimmy Stone tells her that he is in love.

”Raxacori…”

”Raxacoricofallapatorius,” his tone isn’t annoyed, oh no, not one bit.

”Raxacoricofa…”

”C’mon Rose!” he sighs, arms folded over his chest and a not-quite glare in his eyes. ”You did it yesterday…”

”Yeah, but it just came to me,” she mumbles, spoon sliding through the ice-cream in the bowl before her.

”C’mon, say it with me,” the Doctor finally relented. ”Raxa…”

”Raxa…”

”Cori…”

”Co…”

”Falla…”

”Pa…”

”To…”

”To…

”Rius…”

”Raxacoricofallapatorius!”

”….. Yeah, can’t do it.”

His sigh can be heard all the way to said planet. As can Rose Tyler’s laugh

He thinks that maybe….

He stops that thought.

”And that?”

”That’s the Horsehead Nebula. It’s in the constellation of Orion.”

”Oh,” she mumbles, letting her hand drop back to the grass. ”It’s pretty.”

”Yes, very,” the Doctor agrees. ”It’s quite a sight.”

”And how many of these places have you visited?” she casts him a quick, nervous look. ”I mean… in all your lives…”

”A lot,” he simply answers and there is tense silence and he thinks, if he had still been the old him, she would have challenged him now, would have demanded to get a proper answer…

”How many is a lot exactly?”

He can’t help but grin, brightly, proudly, happily, wondering at the warm burst of feeling in his chest.

”More than your silly little human mind could even imagine.”

”Hey! That’s not nice at all!” she shouts and pokes him in the ribs, and the Doctor laughs.

He thinks… It’s just that maybe….

”What about that one?” she interrupts his thoughts. He is all too happy to let her.

“How many women have you abducted?”

”No,” he says, both of his hearts fighting to get into his throat and he wonders, because this is terrible and awful and he shouldn’t feel this way, she’s alive and safe and happy and not with him.

“That’s my friends.”

“Where is she? Hopped out for a spacewalk?”

“She’s gone.”

”Gone where?” the angry bride in front of him shouts, clenching the shirt as if ready to attack him with it and he realizes.

”I lost her,” he says and takes it from her and hides it from sight because…

Well. It hurts too much when you’re in love.