"The thing is, Gallifreyan isn't so much a language in the proper sense." The Doctor tapped lightly on one of the electrodes he was placing along her hairline, his words flying. "It doesn't have a grammar that you can learn, or maybe it's the Grammar is what you learn and the meaning is kind of just part of you…"

"Doctor, stop! You're not making any sense." Rose grabbed his hand and pressed it between both of hers. "Just slow down, and tell me what you're doing."

"I already explained." The Doctor frowned at her.

Rose rolled her eyes, but it was Red who disagreed out loud.

"No you didn't." The little girl stood facing Rose, where she sat in the chair next to a bank of computers and equipment The Doctor had commandeered from the Archeological team. "You just started shouting gibberish and running around."

Rose snorted to cover her laugh as The Doctor's turned to protest.

"I do not shout gibberish!"

"Fine, but why are you hooking me up to a deep sea radar?" Rose broke in before argument could go any further.

"I need to find out what is going on inside your brain." The Doctor leaned over to squint at one of the monitors. "Normally, the sonic would give me enough information to go on, or I could just look in there myself."

"Like you did with Madame De Pompadour?" Rose interrupted somewhat sourly. Her tone didn't seem to register with the Doctor, since he nodded and went on.

"But since my handy screwdriver is giving me nothing…." He trailed off and she looked at him sharply.

"What about the finger's to the temple…thing?" Rose prompted.

The Doctor was crouched behind a pile of equipment, so she couldn't hear his reply.

"Doctor, I can't hear you."

"It doesn't work on you." Red's voice piped up. She was holding her blue bunny again, Rose noticed.

"Your mind has too many twists in it…" The little girl looked over at the half Time Lord with a quizzical expression, and Rose followed her gaze to see the Doctor standing and looking with exasperation at her daughter.

"It's not that I can't do it…." He sighed and looked down at his hands, currently holding a bunch of wires. "It's just safer if I don't."

Rose digested that for a moment.

"So, hooking my brain up with a bunch of wires to equipment that you have cobbled together in the last hour is somehow safer than you doing your little telepathy trick?"

The Doctor combed his fingers back through his hair.

"You've looked into the heart of Time, Rose. And you carried around a sliver of the time vortex in your mind for years." He shook his head. "Not to mention Cassandra and the psychograph…"

Rose felt a shiver move up her spine.

"So what are you saying?"

The Doctor moved to stand in front of her, and looked her in the eyes.

"The only reason that your mind has survived, as it has, is by adapting and changing itself in some fairly fundamental ways." Rose blinked, but the Doctor went on. "The average human mind is fairly straightforward with not much in the way of barriers and just the basic five senses…fairly boring."

She narrowed her eyes, and he refocused.

"Your mind is different…" He touched the tips of his fingers briefly to her temples. They felt nice and she frowned when he moved back. "It twists in on itself in some ways, and I don't know if unraveling those twists would cause damage to you."

"But the radar machine is completely safe?" Rose couldn't keep the skepticism out of her voice as she glanced from the Doctor to the machines and back. He grinned back at her.

"Where would be the fun in that?"

Rose lifted an eyebrow.

"I have just two words for you mister : Jackie Tyler."

The Doctor shuddered dramatically, and she couldn't resist a smile. He smiled as well and reached over to cup her cheek in one of his ridiculously long fingered hands.

"It will be okay Rose, I promise."

Well, what can I say to that? She thought with a mental shrug, as he pulled his hand away and turned back to his tinkering.

"I still don't get what the big deal is about me being able to read Gallifreyan, though." Rose said as she sat back to watch her Doctor rummage through a heap of wires. "I know all kinds of languages, thanks to the TARDIS and Red."

The Doctor was shaking his head even before she was done speaking.

"It doesn't work like that with Gallifreyan. It isn't a language so much as…" He struggled for a moment. "…an inheritance." "Time Lord Scholars believed that it was because of the Untempered Schism. That it affected every being on Gallifrey even if they never looked directly into the Time Vortex."

Rose was confused.

"What? Like your born speaking it?"

The Doctor shook his head, still busy with his sonic and the wires.

"Not speaking, but knowing it in some way…" He looked up. "Like Red really…she has the pieces of the language, but she doesn't know how to put them together." Rose glanced at Red, who seemed to be in deep thought as she stood holding her bunny.

"So how do you get to the reading and writing bit?" She asked feeling the electrodes on her forehead move as she frowned.

"Well, that's what the academy is for; to teach Time Lords to master the language of time."

Rose understood suddenly.

"That's why you're worried." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the old compass. "Only someone with academy training could know how to read Gallifreyan, so Red couldn't be the one that's letting me read it."

She looked at The Doctor who was looking back at her cautiously.

"Yes."

"So it must have something to do with this, since it is Time Lord tech." She looked at the old compass in her hand barely aware of The Doctor's answering nod.

I can't decide if I'm frightened or excited.

"We're ready." Rose looked up sharply to see The Doctor standing in front of her.

She glanced over at the monitors, but they only showed a bunch of squiggles that meant nothing to her. She looked back at The Doctor.

"Right… so what do you want me to do?"

"Umm, well…" He looked at the monitor and then back to her, and grinned briefly. "I'm going to need you to go to sleep."

"You've got to be joking; I'm wide awake!"

He held up his hands and wiggled the fingers.

She sighed and nodded, though she couldn't help a little bit of grumbling. "Putting me to sleeps okay, but you can't untie my twisty mind without shooting it full of electricity".

"Hush Rose." He chided as he hunkered down in front of her and put the fingers of both hands on the sides of her face. "I'll wake you up in just a minute."

Rose felt herself sinking out of consciousness, but managed to smile at her Doctor before she went.

The Doctor took a moment to just look at Rose Tyler sleeping. Blond hair pulled back into a messy ponytail revealing a centimeter or so of darker blond roots and slightly smudged mascara.

"Why do you only look at her like that when she is sleeping?" Red's voice came from right around his elbow, and he looked over and down at her. She was giving him a quizzical look. He sighed.

"Old habits die hard."

She frowned, but he turned away and flipped a switch on one of the monitors.

"Let's see what we have going on here…" The monitor winked to life and The Doctor buzzed it briefly with his sonic.

Just a quick polarity reversal.

Spikey lines appeared on the screen in a mass that gradually began to separate as he watched.

"Is this her brain?" Red's voice broke his concentration and he looked over at her before turning back to the screen.

"Basically," He shrugged. "The sensors are picking up all the electrical activity in her brain and software that I've transmitted from the sonic is sorting all the wavelengths to determine whether there are any abnormalities." There was a sudden ping from the equipment and the Doctor leaned in close.

"There!" He pointed at a wavy line that now moved along the bottom of the screen. "That is not normal electric activity for Rose's brain." He grinned over at Red. "We've got it now!" The little girl smiled back widely, mirroring his own emotion.

Another ping sounded and he turned back to the monitor, just as two more pings sounded, and then another string of pinging noises filled the room as he looked at the monitor and felt his mouth go dry.

"Where's mum?" Red's voice sounded small and scared, and the Doctor turned to see her staring at the monitor, which was now showing about half the mass of wavy lines running along the bottom of the screen. He swallowed and pointed at the top half, and then turned to look at Rose.

The peaceful look of sleep was gone from his Rose's face, and a frown of seeming pain had replaced it. Her breathing was coming faster as well and one hand had slid from her lap to rest near the bulge in her jeans where, the Doctor guessed, she had the Compass in her pocket.

"Doctor?" Red's voice snapped him out of his blank shock, and he turned back to the monitor. "Doctor, what is happening to her? I don't see her clearly."

Don't see her…?

"She has another mind inside her." The doctor tried to speak calmly, but realized that he was spiking his hair with his fingers even as he spoke, and gave up the effort.

"And it is taking over." Another pinging sounded and The Doctor tugged on his hair.

The compass!

With a shout he lunged at the sleeping Rose, and jerked the compass out of her pocket. The smile faded from his face though as the equipment began pinging again.

"Put it back Doctor!" Red shouted. "She can't keep the balance without it."

"What?" The Doctor shouted back, but the pinging was still going and he was desperate. He leaned down and wrapped Rose's limp hand back around the ancient artifact. Immediately the pinging noises quieted.

"Is there more lines on the top or the bottom now, Red?" He asked, fully aware that his voice was shaking.

"It's going back to the way it was…about half." Red's voice was quiet as well.

The Doctor drew in a deep breath and carefully let go of Rose's hand. The compass didn't fall from her fingers and the equipment remained quiet. He turned to look at Red.

Hello again dedicated readers…Sorry about the extended absence from posting new chapters. I had to finish the semester before I could find any more time for writing.

Hopefully, now that I have a bit more time, I can finally get this story finished.