Author's note: Hello, readers! Just a few introductory words before the story starts: This fic was inspired by one of my previous one-shots called "Jimmy". If you haven't read it yet, please feel free to go look for it on my profile; it's a nice little tie-in!

Happy reading!

…

It had been an hour since Mickey had asked the Doctor if he could travel with him and Rose. So far, it wasn't turning out to be quite the adventure he'd wanted.

"So," Mickey said awkwardly.

The Doctor and Rose had essentially been ignoring his existence for the past while, instead focusing all their attentions on piloting the TARDIS.

Pre-ignoring, the Doctor had explained to him that he was teaching Rose to help him fly his time machine. It had been an experience very close to torture listening to the alien rave on about how brilliant Rose was and how she was learning faster than some of the Time Lords he had encountered in his lifetime and how he had never had a human companion who he trusted enough to be a co-pilot before.

Mickey knew that Rose was brilliant. He'd known it way before the Doctor had sauntered into their lives and made a time traveller out of her. He'd known it since he'd met her— which was forever ago.

It had been full-blown torture to then watch as Rose gave the Doctor one of those fantastic smiles that made a man feel as though he were the most important person in the world.

"It's only 'cause I have such a good teacher," she had told him fondly. Mickey spent the next five minutes bearing witness to the two of them smiling at each other like a pair of idiot teenagers.

Had he gotten himself out of being the tin dog just to become the third wheel?

No, Mickey shook his head; he wouldn't allow himself to have such self-piteous thoughts anymore. Those were the thoughts of the sad, scared Mickey Smith that Rose had left for another man. That Mickey was gone now.

"This ship of yours travel anywhere you want it to, then? Star Trek style?" Mickey asked, trying to grab some attention from his friends.

"Yep," the Doctor said without looking at him.

He told Rose something and she giggled. The two seemed to be completely absorbed in their own little world.

Mickey watched as the Doctor asked Rose to find the temporal refractor—whatever that was. The Time Lord gave a loud cheer when she found it. He gave her one of those feet-lifting-off-the-floor-spinning-round-in-circles hugs just for completing the stupid, little task.

Mickey scowled. They could at least try to be a little bit coyer about their relationship around him. He was still technically her boyfriend, after all.

Wasn't he?

Rose spotted Mickey's face over the Doctor's shoulder and instantly felt bad for making him stand around with nothing to do. "Sorry," she told him guiltily as she pulled out of her hug with the Doctor, "We've been ignoring you, haven't we?"

"A bit, yeah," Mickey muttered, hands in pockets.

"Oh, that's alright," The Doctor butted in, moving over to where Mickey sulkily stood, "Can't be the first time you've been ignored, can it?"

"Well, we can't all be you. It's pretty hard to ignore someone with an ego as big as yours," Mickey retorted, "Is that why your TARDIS is so much bigger on the inside?"

"Oi, stop it, you two," Rose reprimanded them, moving in between the two who were getting steadily more into each other's faces, "It's only been an hour, remember?"

"He started it," Mickey very maturely stated.

Rose was standing with a hand on each man's chest, serving as a human barrier between them. Mickey couldn't help but appreciate the irony of this in the back of his mind. She was the main reason for the strain between him and the Doctor in the first place, and now she was trying to be peacemaker.

She really was too good for the both of them.

"Yeah, and now I'm ending it," Rose told them, meeting both of their gazes, "I'm going to go take a shower and then I'm calling it a day. Don't let me catch you two fighting when I leave."

She looked between them sternly for a moment, warning them with her eyes that there was to be no nonsense while she was away. Then, she strode off into the TARDIS halls, leaving the Doctor and Mickey staring after her.

"She can be quite frightening when she wants to be," Mickey remarked when he was sure that Rose was out of earshot.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor agreed, "Must be something she gets from her mother."

"Slaps like her mother, too," Mickey said, rubbing a spot on his cheek. Rose had once slapped him when he had returned home from the pub drunk at five in the morning without telling her where he had been. "Whatever you do, Doctor, never give Rose Tyler a reason to slap you. She has no mercy."

"The Tyler women really do have a propensity for violence, don't they?" The Doctor said, rubbing the spot on his own cheek where Jackie Tyler had slapped him.

"That and daytime soap opera," Mickey added.

"Some might say that's a violence against humanity all its own," The Doctor said.

Their eyes met for a moment, and then both men burst out laughing.