When she landed, she fell to her knees and threw up again. People came running from all directions, crowding her, reaching out and touching her. After jumping, after feeling things reaching for her in the darkness, it was too much.

She screamed, crawling quickly away from the hands that grabbed. The room immediately silenced, everyone staring at her with utter fright, afraid to make a move, to make a sound, to take a breath. There were at least fifteen people in that room and the only sound was the horrible, echoing sounds of Rose Tyler's terrified screams. All eyes were glued to her in mounting fright as she cowered against the corner of the room, her head buried in her knees, her arms wrapped protectively around her head. No one dared move through all of it, until suddenly Rose stopped screaming and instead let out a keening wail and then started sobbing.

Pete Tyler may not have been Rose's real father, but the sight of her curled up so small, so obviously terrified had him snapping out of the frozen pose, some instinct racing to life that, so far, had only been felt towards his son, Tony. A fierce wave of protectiveness had him almost snarling.

"Out," he growled, moving to stand in front of Rose her, protecting her from the shocked eyes with his body. "Everyone get out."

Everyone scattered, not even attempting to act dignified, as they rushed out of that room. The top minds in the world, calm under vast amounts of pressure, and they were utterly shaken by what they had just witnessed. Only Mickey and Jake remained, though they were just as stunned as everyone else.

"What happened to her?" Mickey suddenly moved forward, shaking himself out of the trance he had been in, reaching for her. "Rose, what happened?"

She flinched away from the hands, trying to scramble further away from him, but there was nowhere else to go. Her breath hitched in her throat and she let out an agonized moan, her sobs not stopping.

"Don't touch her!" Pete demanded, pulling Mickey back by his shirt. "It makes it worse, don't you see?"

"Rose? Rose, it's Pete. You're back. You're safe. Whatever happened, whatever you saw, it's gone now." Pete was kneeling in front of her, his voice low and comforting. He repeated this several times, letting her calm herself down, and making no move to touch her.

Finally, several long minutes later, Rose had stopped crying. Her head was pounding, she couldn't breathe out of her nose because it was so stuffy, and her whole face and body hurt. She lifted her swollen eyes to Pete and the relief that washed over his face was apparent, even to her.

"The Void," she whispered, her throat was sore from the screams and the tears, "Something lives in the Void. It was reaching out."

Three sets of eyes stared at her in fascinated horror.

"It's imposs…" Jake started, but she cut him off, hair sticking to her wet cheeks after she shook her head violently.

"I felt it. Both times. And then when I came back, everyone was touching me. I didn't know where I was, I didn't know who had me. It was overwhelming."

"When I jumped, I didn't feel anything. How did you feel anything? It was like blinking and I was there." Mickey demanded, crouching in front of her.

"I felt it. I felt it all. I didn't last time and I did this time." Rose shrugged, looking down at her shaking hands.

"The stars are going out. The walls between universes are weakening. Maybe in the breakdown of reality, if something exists there, it's gaining...something." Pete trailed off and they all remained silent for a minute.

"Last time, it was easy." Rose filled the silence, her voice stronger than before, but wavering just a little bit. "When he put that jumper around my throat and pushed it. When I immediately jumped back. I didn't feel any different. I was there and then I was somewhere else. But this time, I felt myself being pulled apart and put back together. It was agony."

"You're not supposed to feel it!" Jake exclaimed in frustration, rubbing a hand down his face. "In all of our work, that's never been a variable."

"Yeah, well, I'm telling you that I felt it!" Rose snapped, pushing herself to her feet. "But I landed somewhere. A market, sort of. Safe, breathable air. The Cannon does what it's supposed to."

"There will be no more jumps!" Pete declared. "We'll find some other way."

"We will not," Rose snapped. "I'll continue jumping."

"Look at you, Rose! You came back, throwing up, having an attack. You were in agony. Something tried to grab you! There is absolutely no way I can allow this to continue." Pete crossed his arms and glared at her, she scowled back.

"This was the first jump! We didn't know what to expect. There were all sorts of variables," she sneered the word at Jake, who held his hands up in surrender. and apology "This was a test. To see what would happen. If it even could happen! Now we know."

"Rose…" Pete started, but trailed off. He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to make sense of this new development.

"I'll work on it before I jump again. We'll get everyone to work on it. I'd like a little bit more of a safe landing, more of a guarantee that I'm landing somewhere safe. And a way to keep track of where I land. I don't even know where I landed." Rose pinched the bridge of her nose. "And we'll keep everyone away from me when I come back. No one touches me until I've had a chance to decompress."

"I don't like this." Pete grumbled, but he knew when to concede defeat. This was all they had to find the Doctor, to get the message to him that the stars were going out. They had spent years on it, an unfathomable amount of money. Of course he wasn't going to shut it down.

"Something that tracks the galactic coordinates of where you land," Jake mused, rushing to a computer and trying to figure out the math behind it.

"You have your Tardis key, right?" Mickey asked and when Rose gave the affirmative answer he grinned and headed to another computer. "Maybe we can find a way to use that as a sort of homing beacon. That way you won't land just anywhere. If we can do it, you'll ideally land near the Tardis. Near the Doctor."

"Brilliant," Rose breathed and gave him a huge smile. The unexpectedness of that had him grinning goofily back . "That's brilliant, Mickey. I wonder if there's a way to expand the protective shell of the transport itself? That way, maybe the landings won't be so rough. The Void won't…"

"Incredible," Pete agreed, before walking towards Rose and steering her away from the computer she was about to sit in front of. "But you are not doing anything else here today. You've been through enough."

"I'm fine! I'm not jumping again, I can meet with James McKinley," James was one of the brains behind the Dimension Cannon, he helped Rose put her crazy idea into this tangible and working creation. "Maybe he can figure it out."

"I'm sure he can," Pete agreed, still leading her out of the room. "And he can start to do it without you here. You need to go home, to take a shower, to work through this."

"I'm not a child that you can coddle!" Rose growled out in frustration, her still shaking hands clenched into fists. The idea of going home, of being alone right now, was enough to have her heart start racing anew.

"No, but you are an employee of this company! You've had a trauma and as your superior, I am demanding that you go home for the rest of the day." Pete snapped and she recoiled from his tone, from the look in his eyes, and then gave a hard nod

"Yes, Sir!" Rose snapped back and wrenched her arm away, walking out of the room on her own.

"Rose, I am not doubting your abilities. I know that if I let you, you would stay here and work on this until you actually completed it. You would ignore all of our warnings and you'd jump again tonight. But in order for this to continue, I have to trust you to take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself includes your emotional state. You and I both know that you are in no state to do anything more here today." Pete grabbed her before she could leave the room, his hands resting on her shoulders, and met her eyes squarely. She swallowed and nodded.

"Yeah. I understand. But, Pete, I don't want to think about it right now. There is something here that I can do, something to distract me until I have had a bit of distance and time away from it. Going back to my flat will be overwhelming in the silence. You say you trust me to take care of myself, but this is me taking care of myself. I am definitely not going to be jumping again today. But, please, let me do this." Rose knew what was best for herself, she always had. She wasn't one to sit and mope when she could be doing something. You make a stand, you say no. She met Pete's eyes bravely and he was silent for a few seconds before he let out a sigh and nodded.

"Fine. Get James in here. Figure it out together, but you will go home tonight. You'll get some sleep. You will try and process what you went through today and decide if you want to continue. I can't make that decision for you and if you decide not to, we'll find someone else. It doesn't have to be you."

"Yes," Rose said softly, reaching up and grabbing the key around her throat. "It does."