Ties Between Freedom and Love

✦03✦

Chapter Three
Mickey's Lost His Head

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"Do you think she should try the hospital?"

Rose asked as they sat in the small restaurant just a block or two away from the apartment. Mickey kept repeating pizza in the car as soon as Emma and Rose got back and they took it as a sign he was hungry.

"Suki said they had jobs going in the canteen," Rose suggested as she looked over at Emma, who barely paid attention, all she did was pick at the napkin draped over her empty plate.

"Is that it," Emma sighed, "dishing out food?" she asked and Rose sympathetically smiled.

Emma wasn't really worried about what job she would take next. For all she cared, she might as well stay unemployed. No, she was worried about this Doctor nonsense that had her brain in a constant spin of questions. Complaining, rather than yelling was just her way of coping with her inner frustration.

"You could do A levels," Rose offered. "What do you think, Mickey?"

Emma looked up when he didn't say anything, but instead, he leaned forward over the table and crowded her and Rose.

"So, where did you meet this Doctor?" he asked and Emma and Rose shared a rather suspicious and weirded-out look.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rose retorted, "was I talking about the Doctor or Emma?"

Mickey barely let her finish before he was talking again, "Because I reckon it was back at the shop aren't I right? Was he something to do with that?" he asked and his eyes fixed on Emma and only her which sufficiently freaked her out and annoyed Rose to no end.

Rose looked at Emma, who rolled her shoulders back in discomfort of the sudden topic and situation.

"No," she shook her head and leaned back in her chair trying to get as far away from him as possible.

"Come on," he urged.

"Sort of," Emma shrugged if only to get him to shut up.

"What was he doing there?"

"Mickey, enough!" Rose scolded, "can't you see she doesn't want to talk about it?"

"But you can trust me," Mickey smiled. To think of it he hasn't stopped smiling since they left Clive's house. "Babe. Sweetheart. Sugar."

"Mickey! Stop it!" Rose snapped, "you're creeping us out!"

While Rose tried to get Mickey to look at her and stop smiling, Emma was subtly reaching for the knife in her boot. Something was wrong with him and that something was not human hormones or idiotic guy syndrome.

"You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he's planning, Emma," Mickey wasn't smiling anymore, instead, he was looking very serious and a little scary. "I can help you because that's all I really want to do, sweetheart. Babe. Sugar. Ba-. Sug-."

"What the bloody hell is the matter with you?" Rose questioned, "Mickey, why are you calling Emma babe, sweetheart, and sugar? Mickey?!"

"Somethings wrong," Emma stated and gripped her knife tighter under the table.

"No, really?!" Rose exclaimed, "Mickey, look at me. What's going on?"

"Your champagne," the waiter announced.

"We didn't order any champagne," Mickey said, not even looking away from Emma for a second.

It wasn't making Rose so much jealous as it was uncomfortable and worried. Mickey never crossed the line with Emma. He also never used so many freaking pet names before. And on top of that, she could feel Emma's knife scraping against her knee.