Title: Choices
Fandom: Dr Who (9th Doctor)
Spoilers: for Boom Town
Notes: I found myself wondering about how Mickey's trip to Wales would be seen from outside the group of those in the know about Rose's whereabouts.
It had been the phone call that had stopped it. Stopped things dead in their tracks before they even started. Mickey had been coming on to her, at long bloody last (took him long enough to stop mooning over ruddy Rose Tyler, didn't it?) when his mobile rang.
Rose. Well of course it would be Rose. Who else would it be?
That had just put the tin lid on things, it had. So before they'd had even their first kiss as a couple, they had their first row, and it was over his bloody ex. Rose Tyler, who'd disappeared for a year, come back for about two days, and then disappeared again. She'd been gone for months now, and Tricia was finally thinking she had a chance at Mickey (she'd always had her eye on him, ever since school) when out of the blue, Rose rings him and asks him to meet her in Cardiff.
Cardiff!
Tricia wasn't exactly sure what was worse: that Mickey was being asked to go to Cardiff, of all places; or that he offered to take her along. She'd put her foot down about that one, and no mistake.
"I'm not going to bloody Cardiff just so I can watch her whistle you back like a pet dog," she'd said.
"It's not like that," he'd protested.
"Oh? Then what is it like?"
"She just wants me to drop off her passport, meet her for a drink."
"Yeah, right. Then she goes off travelling again, right?" Tricia was furious. "What else does she want you to drop off for her?"
"It's not like that," he said again.
"Too bloody right it isn't," she'd replied. "You give her her passport, she swans off. You come back here. You say 'Yeah, Trish, this is serious, yeah, you mean something to me' and then six months later she calls again, and off you go like a lost dog. And I'm left here wondering whether the thing she's come to pick up this time is you." There were tears in her eyes, and her voice cracked on the last words.
Mickey had noticed. "I'm sorry," he said. He reached out to hold her, but she shoved his arm away.
"Make up your bloody mind, Mickey. Just make up your bloody mind. Are you gonna spend the rest of your life waiting for Rose to come back, or are you going to move on?" The words are an ultimatum, but the tone is a plea. "I've watched you. I've watched you these last eighteen months, watched you eating your heart out over her. I saw her when she came back the last time, too. Too wrapped up in that other bloke of hers to even give a damn about you. You deserve better, Mickey. You deserve better."
She'd left his flat then, rather than stay and argue. Left his flat, headed back to the crowded one she shared with a group of friends, and locked herself in the bathroom while she bawled her eyes out. He'd gone to Cardiff two days later, and she knew she'd blown it.
She started going out with Gaz from down the youth centre.