* * *

"… but Mickey here, he's the luckiest of all of us—how long ago was it, Mickey? Three, four years?"

"Four years since I met him," Mickey confirms, nodding at the pale and bespectacled young man—Joshua, though most people here recognise the name Doc_Neo more easily—who is enquiring about his experiences with the man known as the Doctor. It's rather comforting, the way everyone in this little sphere calls the alien merely "him", as if he were a minor god, or an actor so famous his name had been elided.

"Wow, that must have been awesome," breathes Joshua.

Mickey wants to tell him that it wasn't awesome, that it was scary and painful and the memories are now tinged with emerald jealousy, but he's clinging to the idea that if the time travel is real, Rose will be back soon (soon, that is, in what he's learned from the geeks here to call subjective time), and that if it isn't, Rose will dump the lunatic soon and come back soon anyway.

With every passing day, the former seems more likely, so Mickey coasts along on the wave of glory his brief association brings him in this little sub-section of society, and prays every night that Rose will return.

"It was pretty cool," Mickey agrees, modestly. "Of course, he couldn't stay for long—being chased by some other alien, as I understand it—but he knows that if he ever swings by Earth again, he can count on me."

Joshua nods, the flow of people carrying models of spaceships continues around them, and in Mickey's pocket he curls his hand into a fist.

He'll be ready, if the Doctor ever swings by again. Ready to take a swing.