CHAPTER NINE
Energy Signatures

Lying on the self-warming sand of a darkened beach and staring up at the stars of the Questrine Galaxy was not an unenjoyable way to spend the evening. The Doctor needed a break - a step back from guilt and worry and headaches and stress. This was a perfect setting for a stress free night. Beautiful, peaceful, uninhabited.

He'd never been to this planet before, and he was still getting oriented to the sky from this new perspective when Rose spoke from where she was lying beside him.

"Where's Earth?"

"Oh, you can't see it from here. Can't even see your galaxy from here. You're a long ways from home. Three-point-two billion light years, actually."

She was quiet for a moment. "I can't even think of how far that is."

"Thirty trillion, trillion kilometers, roughly. Humans don't come this far until..." He paused as he considered it. "I don't know, actually. I don't think I've ever seen humans this far from home, come to think of it. Good thing this planet's not inhabited. They might want to put you in a museum."

"And you. You look like me."

"That's true," he mused thoughtfully. "Or they might just think you're a Time Lord."

She was quiet. Finally, she turned onto her stomach, pulling her arms under her as she buried her fingers in the heated sand. "I've been thinking a lot about what happened the other night. What you said about the Tardis."

"What about it?"

"You say she doesn't feel emotions. Does she feel other things?"

"What other things?

"Anything?"

"I think she can. Though not with the same kind of nerves and synapses. Or language to put any of that into."

"How does she feel, then?"

"Energy signatures." He rolled onto his stomach and let a handful of sand sift through his fingers as he spoke. "When you feel, it's endorphins and neurological and chemical reactions inside of your body. She doesn't have all of that, but she does have energy reactions, pulses. And specific things that cause them."

"What sort of things?"

"Probably the same things that cause you to feel."

"Probably?"

He studied her for a long moment. There was curiosity and wonder in her eyes that made him smile every time he saw it. She was so young, innocent and good. Unscathed by war and blood and loss and pain. Everything was new, every day was an adventure to her and she lived every moment as if it was her last, with no thought to the reality that it really could be. Childlike.

"You really want to know?" he teased, smiling as he waited for her to rise to the bait.

"Of course!"

Slowly, he turned more toward her and reached out, fingers against the side of her face. Still full of innocent curiosity, she responded to his touch, turning towards him and following as he drew her closer. Sliding his hand back into her hair, he held her still as he drew closer until their lips barely touched.

"Do you feel it?"

She'd forgotten to breathe. He could feel the tension and anticipation radiating from her.

"Your blood races, heart pounds... Your mind lights up like a Christmas tree, sensory overload. You're aware of everything, alert, active and energized. Just waiting..."

She let out a slow, shaky breath and immediately drew it back in as he slowly pressed in, not quite kissing, just touching, just teasing.

"Can you feel that?" he whispered, lips brushing her. "Can you feel her?"

She was nearly trembling. He could feel the tension and scatterbrained excitement. "Right now, um... Right now, all I feel is you."

He hesitated a moment, then slowly pressed in closer, his mouth firmly against hers, kissing her soundly. His own thoughts scattered as he let himself taste her, lips and teeth pulling gently, coaxing her response. As he slowly withdrew, he smiled at the feeling.

"Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

He opened his eyes to look at her, flushed and nearly trembling with the sensory overload. "My whole body is tingling."

"Like it's gone to sleep, and the circulation's just returning," he said softly. "All of the pinpricks with none of the discomfort."

"Yes," she gasped, breathless.

"That's the Tardis."

She took a slow, shaky breath. "And all that from just a kiss."

"Mmm... not quite."

"What do you mean?"

He leaned close again, letting her feel his closeness, hearing her breath catch again. "It's not the kiss. It's the energy. It's the reaction - what makes your heart beat faster, your thoughts scatter."

He let their mouths touch once more - a closing kiss - and gently pulled away. Lying on his side next to her, he stroked her hair gently as he waited for that energy to fade. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

He smiled. "You okay?"

"I think so." She took a deep breath. "That's like a drug. All you can do is feel."

"That's the nearest our bodies can come to how she feels things."

"That's incredible."

"Yeah."

His smile grew as he watched her slowly relax again, resting her head on her arm and staring blankly past him. He gave her a few moments to pull her thoughts together before he reached out to brush her hair back from her eyes.

"So if all she has is feeling," Rose said quietly, "is that why... I mean..." She lowered her eyes. "With the fire."

"I don't know," he admitted. "She's never done anything like that before."

"But it was her."

"Probably."

"And the dreams?"

"Mmm, she's good at dreams. The timelessness, I think, makes it easier for her to manage. People don't expect their dreams to make sense. Perfect environment for a message that can't tell the difference between past, present and future."

Rose nodded slowly, watching him with curiosity. "What about you? How does she talk to you?"

"Oh...it changes. Dreams, visions, voices, feelings, images. Mostly images, since they don't have a language or a tense. A rock's a rock, tree's a tree. She doesn't see it quite like that, but it's easy enough to work out."

Rose was still studying him with that curious, almost skeptical look. "Do you think she can read your mind? Like... not just talk but actually pull things out?"

His brow furrowed a little. "What do you mean, 'pull things out'?"

She shrugged. "You know. Read your mind. Know what you're thinking."

"Oh, absolutely. That's how the password works, and how the passages know to change."

Rose stared blankly. "What? What passwords? And what do you mean change?"

He raised an eyebrow. Hadn't she figured this one out yet? "She changes her inner dimensions. She does that, not me. Usually she leaves the rooms we use where they are, but if we particularly need something, she can make it closer."

This time, Rose's eyes got really wide. "You're serious?"

"Well, as long as she knows where she put it the last time."

Still gaping, Rose just blinked at him, dumbfounded. He laughed. "Rose, it's a big blue box with hundreds of rooms inside. If you can accept that, why's it so hard to imagine that the rooms move?"

"I don't know," she finally managed. "I guess you just sort of... get used to it. The whole 'bigger on the inside' thing. But moving rooms?"

"She can, yeah."

"So why did it take you so long to get to me when I was locked in that other control room?"

"Because she didn't know where that room was. And neither did I."

"What do you mean she didn't know where it was? She took me there."

"Yeah, that's the funny thing. Because it wasn't on her schematics anymore. In her database."

"Schematics?"

"I haven't even been down half those halls; some have been there longer than I have. I have no idea just how many rooms she has back there." The smile began to melt off his face, and he added a hint of warning to his tone. It was easy when the sound of her panicked scream was still readily available for recall. "You shouldn't be wandering around those hallways either. You could get lost so easily - and not just in space. I don't want you getting stuck on the other side of a time wall where if you call for me, I won't even be able to hear you until ten years later."

She was beyond the point of questioning him on Time Lord science. She simply nodded, mutely. Then she looked away, back down at the sand. "Trust me, I'm not going back down there."

She hesitated for a moment, then looked up suddenly with a more determined, fixed gaze. "Has she ever made you... hallucinate?"

"No."

"Could she?"

"Probably. Actually, yes. Definitely. But no. Why?"

"When I was in that room..."

She trailed off. As the silence lingered, the Doctor sat up and watched her closely. "The flames?" he asked quietly.

She sat up slowly beside him, folding her hands in her lap, head down. Finally, she looked up with fear in her eyes. It made something inside of him, some natural, protective instinct, shift into overdrive.

"When I was in there, those flames were everywhere. I could feel - literally feel - my skin burning. It wasn't just a vision, wasn't just a dream. It hurt. A lot. And more than that, it felt like... like dying. The way that they say your life flashes before your eyes, it did that. And I had this thought. This strange, strange thought."

"What thought?"

Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. "Something about how I was never going to know."

"Never going to know what?"

"If I was right. But I can't remember what about. There were so many different thoughts - like different voices in my head. Like I was at least three or maybe four people all at the very same time. I don't know how to describe it. But one of those people... I died."

She was hurting. He hated seeing it. He didn't want to make her think about this. But he had to know.

"Would she do that?" Rose asked quietly, voice wavering. "Would she make me feel that? Dying... Burning..."

"I'm fairly sure she did. But I don't know why."

"That was the most painful and terrifying thing I've ever experienced in my life. I'm afraid to go to sleep because I keep thinking... it's usually when I'm just waking up that things happen. That I think and feel things. I mean, it's not the only time. I have it right now, but -"

"Right now," he interrupted. "You're feeling something you think is not from you right now?"

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes."

He waited expectantly, but when she didn't continue, he finally prodded. "And what is it?"

She tried a few times before she managed to speak. "It's like... It's like that feeling I had when you sent me back to Earth in the Tardis. The other you, I mean, When you were with the Daleks. This... loneliness and helplessness. Like you're not here and you're never coming back. And you are here, I know you are. I know this is real, you're real. But I feel like... like you might just be a dream. Like I'm going to wake up in my own bed, back home, 2006, and you'll have never even existed."

"How long have you felt that?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty minutes."

"And it came suddenly?"

"Yes."

"That sounds like her, but why?" He sat back and turned to look at the Tardis. "And why's she talking to you and not me?"

"It's like that thing you said before the games," Rose said suddenly. "About the storm."

He knew what she was referring to instantly. The fear of loss and pain and the knowledge that it was inevitable and all of the feelings brought to life by that fact.

"What about it?"

"That feeling. Everything it makes you feel."

He eyed her warily. "How do you know what that makes me feel?"

"I don't know, but I do. And that's what's inside of my head. But I don't know why." She looked up, pleadingly. "Can she make me feel that? Because you're feeling it, maybe?"

"But I'm not feeling it."

"What if you are and you don't even notice it anymore?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that. He wasn't sure what she was getting at. And he wasn't sure why, if that could be the case, it was suddenly becoming a matter of importance now. In any case, he sincerely hoped that her theory was wrong. If she was somehow empathizing with him beyond the normal human capacity, she was feeling things that no human being was ever intended to experience. He wasn't sure that any being in the universe was intended to experience those emotions.

"I'm so tired," she said quietly. "But I'm afraid. I'm afraid to sleep."

"Would you sleep better in your own bed?"

She looked up, holding his gaze for a long moment.

"Earth, 2006? See your mum, dinner with Mickey, good night's sleep?"

She smiled tightly. "She can still translate for me when I'm not inside. Why wouldn't she be able to talk?"

"I could take her away for a bit."

"No!"

He laughed at her enthusiastic response. "Just for the night," he assured her. "I'd be back in the morning."

Jaw set, she shook her head with such determination, it made him smile.

"You don't really think I wouldn't come back," he teased.

"I know that we don't always end up in the right year when we go somewhere."

"Oh, alright. Fair enough."

He smiled. She relaxed. Her eyes closed as she sighed and suddenly, he could see just how tired she was. He glanced back at the Tardis, then at her, and finally leaned forward to put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on."

Startled, she tensed as he leaned back, pulling her down beside him. But she didn't resist. As he settled, one arm under his head and the other around her, he pulled her closer, guiding her until her head was resting on his shoulder.

"Get some rest," he said softly, watching her settle before looking back up at the sky. "We're safe here. And I'll wake you if you're having a bad dream."

"Promise?"

He smiled, and squeezed her shoulders in a sideways hug. "I promise."

Silent, she settled against him, head on his chest, breathing slow and shallow. He listened to the sound of it as he felt her relax, draping an arm around his waist. He didn't speak again. Quietly mapping the stars, he felt her weight settle on him, and knew she'd drifted off to sleep.