Essex

 

The cultural center of London

“What's wrong?” Mickey Smith's dark features curled in a frown as he looked over to his girlfriend.

“You don't want to know.” Rose Tyler replied accurately and honestly.

“Rose,” Mickey said tiredly. “Let it go. He left over a year ago.”

“And I can't figure why. Well nothing that makes any sense anyway.” Mickey sighed audibly. They'd had this conversation enough times for him to know what she'd meant by the remark. But walking around Trafalgar Square at 9 at night, two days before Christmas was not the place for this discussion.

“It's alright for him to be gone Rose.” was all Mickey said in response. “The rest is his problem not yours.” he added in a comforting tone. This wasn't the time to ask what he'd brought her out here to ask. But perhaps when they got back to their place and finished dinner...before she started worrying about going to her mum's for Christmas. It was never a pleasant time for either of them; Christmas with Jackie Tyler.

Rose sighed, then smiled.“Thank you.” She leaned in to kiss Mickey on the lips. “For everything.” They shared a warm smile. The year since the battle of Canary Wharf had been the happiest and most contented year of Rose Tyler's life. And Mickey had made it possible. She hoped that someday soon they could be more than just boyfriend and girlfriend, but somehow could never make herself believe it.

2113 Sterling Drive, Essex.

Sarah Jane walked into in to her son's room. The first thing she saw was the homework assignment on the wall. She beamed with pride. Luke was barely in the 10^th grade and he was already showing up his teachers. I know what you may be thinking; that such an attitude was typical tenth grade behavior. You'd be absolutely correct, if the boy's classes were tenth grade level. They weren't; they were for a masters, of physics. You may now therefore better appreciate her pride in her son...Luke was asleep, or seemed to be at any rate. And not wanting to intrude any further than she had, she turned around to leave.

“They literally don't know what they're talking about.” Luke said through closed eyelids.

“I take it you're not just being derogatory.” Sarah Jane replied gently.

“They teach relativity and quantum physics, but treat them as nothing but theories or suggestions.”

“As long as YOU know that you are right, then that's all you need to know.” She said, repeating words that she knew must sound tired to his ears by now.

“You're right I do know. But why? I mean how can I be so certain?” He sat up from the bed and swung his legs around over the mattress. “I know you know.”

“It's because of your father.” She said with a frankness that surprised her as much as it did him. “He treated these concepts as fact, even common knowledge.” She closed her eyes to push back the image in her mind. When she opened them again Luke was looking at her with concern as well as his trademark curiosity. “I guess we humans do have some form of genetic memory.” she finished coldly.

“Mom, I know you don't want to hear this but it's freaking me out and I need to tell someone.” He paused and waited for a response. No verbal reply came, but her eyes sent him a clear message 'proceed with caution but proceed'. At least that must have been his reading of it because he continued quickly. “I feel like I MISS him.” Suddenly he had no desire to keep talking. “I thought you should know.”

“It's..It's not that surprising Luke. I miss him...Sometimes.”

She walked out of the room, shutting the door gently behind her. Luke was her son, he deserved the truth. Her mind kicked into 'thousand mile' mode the instant she got back to her room. As she lay down on the sofa, almost hitting her head on the bookcase, she found herself smiling. “After all that time; who would have believed it?” It was an amusing thought, more for the fact that it was true at all than for the irony of the truth. She'd spent about half a decade gallivanting throughout the universe with a self described 'alien physician who happens to be a pacifist'. And after all that, who ended up stealing her heart? A genuine solider who even 12 years after being discharged from service, STILL carried a gun everywhere he went. Not that she had particular cause to complain about that, the pistol had saved her life; it was how they'd met in the first place. Of course thinking about how they'd met brought her the far less pleasant memory of how he'd gone. In her mind she was there again. It had been two days after Luke's third birthday. She'd come home from work to find a picture of an atom drawn in blue crayon on the table. Beside it was a note from her husband.

“I didn't know this was possible. I won't ask you to forgive me.

I only hope one day you will understand.”

...She'd fallen asleep crying that night. It hadn't occurred to her until a few days later that the 'this' in the note might refer to her son's picture of the atom. But why would that have scared Jerome off? Why would he, or any father, have felt fear instead of pride? She raised her head from the sofa. She'd put the question off long enough and she needed to figure this out. The answer came in 3/8ths of a second. “It was literally because of him.” she said in a low voice, but letting anger seep through anyway.