Twenty-Four Hours

[preserved_ginger]

Title: Twenty-Four Hours
Character(s): Mickey, Ten and Rose
POV: Mickey
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Setting: Rise of the Cybermen
Disclaimer: I am borrowing, sans permission, what will never be mine.
Rating: PG
Summary: "Back here in twenty-four hours!"

Twenty-four hours, he said. And, of course, he was running after Rose at the time so didn't even bother to look at me when he said it.

Sometimes I really don't know why I bothered asking to come along. The Doctor doesn't seem able to concentrate on anything other than trying to steal my girlfriend at the moment – and she's equally as obsessed with him – and it's as if I don't exist. The universe might as well have shrunk to the size of the two of them, so little attention do they pay to anything or anyone else.

Take today as an example – he had me standing there like a lemon pressing that bloody button for half an hour, when he himself says I could have stopped after a minute or two. If he hadn't been so busy chatting up my girl then perhaps he would have been able to say so; sometimes I wonder if he hasn't a vested interest in making me look as stupid as possible.

“Mickey-the-Idiot,” he calls me; if I'm made to look stupid then he's made to look extra brilliant and that makes Rose think he's sexy. As if he isn't winning anyway, with his pretty-boy looks and that little blue box that can take her anywhere in all time and space. It isn't as if I have anything that can even vaguely compete with that.

Which, presumably, is what he's counting on. He's also counting on my having no back-bone and just letting him steal her off me without so much as a by-your-leave. I don't like the way he's making a fool out of me; it has to stop.

Now he's standing there, between the two of us, making like it's a big choice he has to make to decide which of us he's going to run after. I'm not stupid. It wasn't going to be me – wasn't ever going to be me. It's not me he's hopelessly in love with, after all (and I'm not even sure he knows that he's head-over-heels for Rose. It's not as if he's the most observant bloke I've ever seen about things of that nature), is it?

It was always going to be her – and there he goes, running after her like he can't bear to be apart from her for longer than absolutely necessary. I doubt it's gonna be too much longer before he figures out that he's in love with her. I know what that feels like, to love her, and I wish with all my heart it was me in his position. But that's not gonna happen, so I might as well quit dreaming about it.

Twenty-four hours, he said.

Plenty of time for me to find myself something better than this.