Chapter Two - Explanations

When he came up beside her at the TARDIS console, he said nothing. He removed his coat and flung it aside on the jump seat absentmindedly, already handling the controls. It was time to go. She waited as he fiddled with several of the levers and buttons, yanking the small screen to the side to face him as he studied it, as he redid calculations. She didn't understand a word or picture that flew across the screen, the small diagrams and numbers that appeared. She supposed she didn't have to. As long as he did. Inhaling soundlessly, she allowed her eyes to trail from the monitor to his face, hesitating for a moment on the prominent cheekbones as they seemed to almost glow in the pale blue and gold light that was the console of the TARDIS.

Standing up straight, a hand rising to run through his wild dark hair and leaving it even wilder than it had been a moment before, he asked, "What do you say to leaving now?" And he looked at her, lifting his other hand and reaching into an inside suit jacket pocket. He produced his glasses and easily slipped them on, peering at her owlishly from behind them.

She gazed at him, her throat suddenly dry. She wanted to say it was a great idea. One of the best she had ever heard. Brilliant, in fact. Hurry. But somehow all those words bottled up inside and all she could really muster was an inaudible breath, her lips parting. She hadn't even realized she was trembling until she felt her hand brush the console at her side and still the tremors momentarily.

He seemed to understand her loss of words, his face saddening slightly as she continued to fight through a wall of silence. One hand reaching up to push his glasses up and back onto his untamed hair, he lifted the other hand gingerly, fingers curling as his palm pressed to her cheek. Almost as if to assure himself that she was really there. And convincing her that she had thought correctly, he stated in a whisper, "You are here, aren't you."

She stared at him, feeling tears spring to her eyes at the hoarseness in his tone. "Yeah. 'Course I am," she managed to make out. And she felt as if she strained, gazing at him, forcing each word out and feeling it scrape as they came. "How long have I been gone?" she asked him desperately, her voice raspy.

He didn't reply to that for a moment, his eyes dark, flashing his inner moonlight, his expression heavy. And she didn't understand, her frame stiff and tight, thinking how easily she could break with just one wrong word he said to her.

"Doctor, please," she prodded him anxiously.

He turned his eyes from her as she pleaded, instead moving a hand back to the controls. But he maintained his other palm against her cheek, his fingers absentmindedly rubbing a tender spot along her neck. "Doesn't matter," he said curtly. And he made a small gesture, as if to release her. But then, shaking his head to himself, he instead turned to her.

And she moved at the same time, her arms lifting of their own accord and taking hold of him by the waist tightly. He was pushed up against the console by the mere force of her but he went wordlessly, his other hand leaving the controls to take hold of her firmly. She pressed herself into him, her face turning into his collar reflexively and they fit the way they had always fit, as if they had never been separated. His chest rose and then fell once more, a soft sigh escaping him and she heard it against her ear, her shoulders heaving as she suddenly began to cry against his frame. She felt foolish then, weeping like a small child. But he said nothing, one arm wrapped securely up her back, the other leaving her face, managing to wrestle free to grasp the back of her head and drag her closer, if it were even possible. Merely holding her head to his chest as she sobbed, his chin coming to push against her forehead as he bowed his head to hers.

"I was scared," she managed to make out in between her strained sobs. "I don't know…that life anymore! I don't know how to…just be on Earth! I don't know…" And she shook her head, inadvertently knocking into his chin but his arms simply tightened, his breath warm against her hairline. "I don't know that life anymore and I didn't want to go back-"

She broke off and he remained silent, feeling as if the mere presence of words in that silence would desecrate it. Leaning against the console, he took her entire weight against him, holding her as if he would never let go. He was so slender in her arms, he always had been. But as she fell apart in his embrace she realized that he was so much stronger. Physically and emotionally, he was just so much more.

"There's nothing to be afraid of anymore," he said to her, his mouth moving against her forehead. "I promise you. Nothing."

She nodded at his words slightly, her breathing slowing rapidly. "I know," she replied to that. And as if stricken, she pulled away from his arms slightly, her head bowed still. He allowed her reluctantly, one hand still resting along her back, the other refusing to leave its curled position from the back of her head. Inhaling shakily and managing a silly wet laugh, she looked up at him, her cheer seeming strained. "It's still new," she offered by way of awkward explanation, aware of the tear tracks still on her face, watching as his eyes focused on them mournfully. "All this, coming back-"

"Of course," he said to that, nodding quickly at her. And he dropped his hands away from her, settling instead along her arms, nonetheless refusing to let go of her completely. But he sensed that she was perfectly fine with that, her smile genuine if a bit ashamed that she would fall apart so easily. Quickly looking for something, anything, to distract her from their reunion, he asked, "Would you like to know how I did it?" And his sudden excitement brought a laugh and a misty wide smile to her face. "It's brilliant! If I do say so myself!"

"Tell me, tell me!" she prodded him eagerly, a hand lifting and swiping away tear tracks. "Tell me all of it!"

A dazzling smile breaking across his own face, he released her completely only to take hold of her hand in a firm grip and yank her arm almost out of its socket. "Huon particles!" he shouted at her, dragging her closer to the small screen on the console. And as her smile faltered a little bit in confusion he seemed to measure her expression. "Huon particles? Nothing? Nothing at all?" he stressed, gauging her reaction.

She sighed shakily, still so completely lost and yet-

Completely in love. I am completely in love with him.

"Ok," the Doctor said, brushing off her confusion. He lifted his hand and lowered the glasses to his nose once more, his expression adorable as she gazed at him in his excitement. "Huon particles are found in the heart of the TARDIS," he explained, and even as he spoke he was tapping several buttons on the console, bringing up a diagram of the TARDIS onscreen. He motioned, instantly rambling, "Back in our dark ages, we, and by we I mean Time Lords, had created something called Huon particles. Mind you, we abandoned the research. Huon particles were potentially lethal, even to our own kind. But there are Huon Particles in the heart of the TARDIS. Knowing that, I guessed, literally guessed," he exclaimed and as he looked at her his expression shifted. "Hoped, actually," he corrected himself. And his face softened, his hand tightening on hers reflexively. "Hoped that there would still be Huon particles in you, after you had taken in the heart of the TARDIS to come back for me on Satellite 5. And there were!" His expression brightened considerably once more, his hands lifting to grasp her by her face, her own features still very much confused. "Dormant, of course. The Huon particles in you lay dormant once I had taken the heart of the TARDIS from you and returned it to the ship. But they were still there, without you even being aware!"

She stared at him, her face worried. "Potentially lethal, you said," she murmured, her brown eyes widening ever so slowly. "I mean, potentially lethal and…they're in me?" And she looked at him for an explanation, looking completely lost yet apprehensive.

He hesitated, his hands still grasping her by the face. "Well, yes. But dormant. Did I mention dormant?" And he shook her, bringing her face close to his. "But it doesn't matter. The TARDIS removed the remaining particles once you were reunited with it on Bad Wolf Bay. You had a fair amount in your system from before, on Satellite 5. I couldn't take it all out of you when I retrieved the heart of the TARDIS from you. But there was still so very little in your system after, not enough to worry over. But just enough to summon the TARDIS to you!" And his hands tightened on her face, squeezing her cheeks and puffing them up against her lips so that she effectively resembled a blowfish. "Brilliant!"

"Brilliant," she echoed him through puckered lips, sounding still very much confused.

"Yes!" he crowed in accord with her agreement. "Huon particles activate other Huon particles. So I knew, or guessed as I mentioned before, that since you had Huon particles in you that the TARDIS would recognize them and attempt to activate the ones in you. And did it!" His eyes lit up once more, his excitement almost contagious.

If only she understood a word he was saying.

"The TARDIS recognized the particles in you and attempted, attempted, to cross the Void to activate those particles." He shook her as if to shake sense into her. "Can you imagine that? Crossing the Void to an entirely different world to find, to activate, particles that it recognized?" He released one cheek, motioning to the inside of the ship. "The TARDIS is incredible!"

"Incredible," she chimed in with a short, very confused, nod.

This time, finally releasing her, he instead took hold of her hand once more and maneuvered her to look at the screen as he motioned. "However incredible the TARDIS is, conversely," he went on, a slender finger pointing at the diagram onscreen, "it does not have the energy, doesn't have enough power, to cross the Void without causing some kind of damage. To do so would literally collapse both universes." He tapped the screen and another diagram sprung up, rotating. "When I last saw you, when I projected the image through one of the last breaches, I had the TARDIS harness the massive energy of a supernova."

She looked at him. "Yeah, I remember. Two hours ago. Burning up a sun. Just to say goodbye." And her face paled slightly merely thinking of it and all the emotions she had felt, all the tears she had cried in the last couple of hours alone.

He glanced at her as he heard her words, his excitement fading a bit into stunned thoughtfulness. "Two hours?" he echoed her in blank confusion for a moment. Then, dawning realization seeming to cross his features, he uttered, "Right!" And he gazed at her, speechless for a moment, his face strained. The stillness was shared between them both, eyes caught in that complete and heavy silence.

Her lips pressing together into a firm line, expression soft, she reached a hand out and pressed it to his face, thumb brushing an angular cheekbone gently.

His eyes closed at her touch, a breath leaving his frame almost with a rattle, his shoulders settling. And as she trailed her thumb tenderly across his cheekbone and then the gaunt hollow of his cheek, his eyes came open to stare at her, wordlessly. She didn't know what she saw there but the depths of his eyes had no floor and no measure. She could've seen straight into his soul if she stared just long enough. And she didn't like the sorrow that filled those deep eyes.

"Tell me," she prodded him lightly. "I'm not used to you being so quiet. There has to be a law against it in some universe or another." And a smile broke over her face at her words.

His eyes widening for a small moment, he quickly recovered enough to immediately point a stern finger at her in reprimand. "As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted," he began, those midnight eyes now chiding her gently. "I had the TARDIS control the energy of a supernova. Which I admit, even for myself, it's a bit tough to control!"

She nodded at him in feigned understanding.

"But!" And he motioned to the screen once more which now seemed to hold the diagram of an entire solar system. "Imagine the immense energy of a hypernova!" And he let out a groan as if it could only be the most beautiful thing to behold in all of time and space.

She paused before asking. "What's a hypernova?"

He hesitated, his entire frame brimming with energy. "A supernova is a stellar explosion. This much you know?" he asked and he glanced at her quickly, only looking relieved when she nodded. "A hypernova is the same as a supernova but larger. Originally it was defined as a supernova only one hundred times more powerful. It was discovered by your fellow man, and my own kind," he added quickly, "that it's not quite that powerful, but powerful enough." And he eyed her as he said it, making sure she was still with him on the subject. "For a hypernova to occur in your galaxy would be very rare indeed. Every two hundred million years. But hypernovas occur all over the universe, not often but enough that I would have one at my disposal."

She stared at him numbly. "Disposal?"

He paused at the word. "Well, yes," he replied. And he stabbed at the screen once more. "When I first ventured out in search of a hypernova, I found none in our current time. But I knew, with the strength of a hypernova, it wouldn't matter the time. Be it present day or five billion years in your future, the enormous power of a hypernova to power the TARDIS' search for your Huon particles would nonetheless force the TARDIS to materialize exactly where the Huon particles were, even dormant."

She swallowed, feeling that she understood but worried still.

"So, with a little tweaking, inputting your coordinates into this exact time, it was only natural that, seeing as how you were not in your actual world, it would travel to this current time in search of you and then find you instead in this completely parallel world. The Rose in this world never existed. I knew this when putting in the search parameters. But Rose in general, Rose Tyler, exists in several different universes. And they all have timelines, you see, these alternate universes. One small difference can spark off a new timeline in that universe. You have tea one morning and the next day you have coffee. That could potentially start a new timeline. Everything you do from that moment on, because you had coffee instead of tea, can create a completely different world inside a completely different universe. It's fantastic!"

She merely stared at him wordlessly.

"The only problem would be having two of you in one universe, the you from that universe and the you from this universe. Two Mickeys, for example. That was a bad idea from the start. But because you never existed here, inputting coordinates to find you would bring the TARDIS to you here because you're here now. At this time. And the TARDIS did find you, the real you, here. So it…basically…" And he broke off, seeming a bit uncomfortable with the next part.

"Basically?" she prodded.

He grimaced, a finger lifting and shoving the glasses further up his nose awkwardly. Pursing his lips thoughtfully, hands finding their way into his pockets, he said, "Basically…punched a hole into this alternate world." And the rest of that sentence came out quickly and in a whoosh, his entire frame turning from her as if he knew immediately how she would take the explanation.

She gaped at him. "It what?" she asked him in disbelief.

He scratched at his ear, still wincing. "Yes. Well. In simple terms, that's what it did. Punched. Because the force of a hypernova behind it is just…immense," he explained quickly and he threw her a look of awe. "Just so immense, it was beautiful, really. All the breaches were closed. I had to create a new one. The TARDIS still had a hard time even with the force of a hypernova powering it. And I didn't just punch my way in here without thinking about the repercussions. The TARDIS is maintaining the breach, correcting it," he explained. And he paused. "Just goes to show, really."

She was still gaping at him. "Goes to bloody show what?" she demanded.

He blinked at her as if he found her question silly. "Goes to show that tampering in alternate worlds is not allowed," he said, stressing the final word in his sentence, tongue curling. "Imagine the sheer force a supernova creates. All it did was allow me to send out an image to you even with a breach already in place. A supernova." He bent forward a little bit as he spoke to her, staring at her and willing her to understand. "A hypernova, being a hundred times stronger, it's like using a hammer to punch a nail into place with a hole already there from a previous nail. Should've slipped right in like a well fitting shoe, really. Had there been a breach still in place."

She stuck her tongue out a bit, running it over the inside of her teeth as she stared at him thoughtfully, her hand lifting to her forehead. "So, is this going to be a problem? Going back to the real world?"

He shook his head. "Not a bit. The fissure has already been created. To go back through it is easy. Once we're through, in fact, the TARDIS is going to repair the breach. It used the energy of the hypernova to contain the breach while I was here as well which is just…astounding, really. Like cracks from that fissure, it contained the fracture to prevent those cracks, to prevent anything from…from…"

"Cracking," she supplied helpfully.

He bent his head as he hunched toward her, his voice turning a bit husky, his tone almost patronizing. As if congratulating a small child for a picture. "From further cracking! Ooh, Rose Tyler, you are brilliant!" And he flung his arms open wide at her. With a little giggle she threw herself into his embrace, their laughter ringing out in the silent thrum that was the TARDIS and he lifted her clear off the floor, her legs kicking.

Even with the quiet of the TARDIS, this was right. Perfect. His scent, his breath as he laughed, his lean arms tight around her waist and up her back, her own arms clinging him tightly, as if never willing to let him go. Just right, this embrace.

And when he lowered her back to the grated floor of the TARDIS, releasing her but holding her hands in his firmly, her smile was wider than she'd had it in such a long time. That one silent moment between them that went on forever, it was all she could ever want, all she could ever hope to hold on to if they were to ever part again.

Stepping away from her, one hand leaving hers, he flicked a switch as he spoke once more, staring at the screen. "We're already through, speaking of. Or rather, going back to what we were talking about earlier."

She blinked. "We are?"

He nodded. "Yep. Like I said, not an issue to return. Now all I need to do is…" He frowned a bit as he worked, punching in more calculations, "use the energy once more and channel it to repairing that breach. She's storing an immense amount of the energy for future use should she need it, recycling it continuously." He paused thoughtfully. "Not that we'll need it. What would we need it for? Risky popping back and forth between universes. Shouldn't do that again, really."

She waited, nodding to herself as well. This was it then. Once he was done she would be stuck right back in her own world, her own time. Anywhere in her own time. It was all hers again by his side. Her eyes trailed over to him as she thought it, her heart pounding. He had released one of her hands to work the console but his remaining hand continued to hold hers tightly. As if he would never again let go.

"She's a bit sluggish returning…" he murmured quietly, almost to himself. "Ah. You'll be all right, won't you?" His other hand came down to caress the controls of the console for a swift moment as he spoke gently to the TARDIS console, Rose watching him silently. Frowning a bit behind the glasses as the blue and gold glow from the TARDIS brought his features out further, he hesitated, gazing at the display. "Where do you want to go first?" he asked, looking over to her after a hushed moment. As she lifted her gaze to his once more he let a small smile curl his lips mischievously.

"Anywhere," she said to him, suddenly breathless. As he peered at her, she tightened her grip, fingers curling around his. "Absolutely anywhere you want to go."

He paused for a long moment, blinking at her owlishly through his smile. And then, the smile fading the smallest bit, he said, "I think I have an idea where to go." He nodded to himself, tapping in several coordinates. "Set for…once the TARDIS completes the breach repair." And then, seeming to remember something, he grimaced. "Ooh. Maybe not that exact time. Let's go before then. Wouldn't want to run into myself." And he smiled as if it were a silly joke.

She smiled with him, shaking her head.

How she gotten on without him, she would never know.