FIC: Not Ready to Choose One Guy (1/1)
Title: Not Ready to Choose One Guy
Series: There's The Door!
Rating: T
Author: tkel_paris
Summary: In the wake of “Boom Town,” the Doctor lays down some home truths to Rose over her treatment of Jack and Mickey - and himself.
Disclaimer: Not a fan of Rose, which should prove none is mine.
Dedication: Yet another one I can give tardis_mole credit for prodding. :)
Author's Note: I actually haven't watched Boom Town. What little I've read and heard, however, doesn't leave me any more well disposed toward Rose Tyler than before. If anything should've killed any love that the Doctor might've had for her, it ought to have been this episode. At least until she ripped open the TARDIS and caused Nine's death.
Not Ready to Choose One Guy
Started May 28, 2012
Finished February 6, 2013
Rose wasn't sure why Jack said that the Doctor had called them all together in the TARDIS. Her, him, and Mickey. She didn't know what he was needed for. Hadn't the Doctor called him an idiot?
Jack let Rose and Mickey enter the ship first. His time senses and empathy told him that the Doctor had a stick up his ass, and this time it was probably justified.
Mickey was scowling. This hadn't been anything like the trip Rose had said it would be. Maybe he should've said no when she asked him to bring her passport. If she was traveling through time and space, what good did a passport do?
The Doctor watched as the three entered. He'd taken care of Blon, giving her a second chance thanks to the TARDIS' interference. Now...for the far more unpleasant task.
Rose moved right next to him. “Doctor, what's the matter? Why call all three of us here?”
He wasn't going to pull any punches. This would be as direct and possibly insensitive as could be. “Rose Tyler, did you not lure Mickey Smith to Cardiff under false pretences?”
She blinked. “What?” Her voice was a bit small, wondering how he could possibly have known what she offered to Mickey.
“The TARDIS can hear your thoughts, and she's chosen to share them with me.”
Rose was appalled.
“Not,” the Doctor stressed, “that I needed to know you'd played on a young man's desire to be intimate with the girl he loves to have reason to be unhappy with you.”
“What did I do?!”
“Played Jack and Mickey off each other. That's very, very cruel of you, Rose.”
The harsh glare had never been directed at her. Irritation, yes. But something that resembled anger? Well, he came close when they went to visit her father and everything went wrong. He'd yelled at her a lot then, and she'd thought he wasn't coming back after the visit to her mother afterward.
The other two men looked at each other cautiously. Seemed they had something in common, and an ally. But how far was that ally willing to push things?
Rose searched for the words to placate the Doctor. But he cut her off before she could speak.
“There is nothing that justifies what you did. You think you can flirt your way around and not have to care about the consequences. You can't. Nor can you act like there are none to you. You act like having me around gives you the option to act however you feel like. You never had that right. None of my companions ever did.”
“There were others before me?!”
He rolled his eyes. “And that's the point that your little ape brain picks out of all the points I made?”
She squawked in protest. “But I thought I was the first!”
“I never said that. You assumed. You assume that a nine hundred-plus year-old alien would only have ever had one companion.
Just like you assumed that it's possible for me to love someone as immature and inconsiderate at you. I've had family treat me rather like you have, and I have no wish to repeat the experience any longer. Your actions prove that you're not ready to be in any kind of a serious relationship, and you've latched onto me as a ticket to avoid life. No longer, Rose Tyler. You are going home!”
Rose shook her head. “No! You can't! You need me!”
The Doctor practically snorted. “Jack and Mickey can help me. I'm sure their lives will be better without you in them. Though I suppose Mickey will want to check in with Jackie every so often.” He paused, and quickly resumed. “So will my life, come to think of it. No more correcting for a selfish seventeen year-old girl's mistakes.”
Rose paled. He'd realized her actual age. “But I'm eighteen now.”
“Not according to the TARDIS. You missed an entire year, Rose. You're still seventeen."
She complained more, but the Doctor just had Jack hold her back while Mickey ensured that Rose's things were all in the Control Room. A quick swipe through her pockets restored the TARDIS key to the Doctor, and Rose's phone lost its upgrade.
Rose found herself outside the Powell Estate part of the Tower Hamlets before she knew it, and the shock of being all but thrown out left her staring after the disappearing TARDIS in silence. She couldn't understand how those three men would get on without her.
She had no idea that Mickey would grow up faster, and realize more of his natural genius. She could not grasp how much happier Jack would be without her causing any harm to his timeline. And most of all, she would never know that dumping her paved the way for the Doctor's own future happiness.
THE END