A/N: ...I hated writing this chapter. It's taken me three days to wade my way through it. Why is that? Because I wrote myself into a freaking hole, didn't I?

Why was Trapp looking for the Doctor? What did he really see that prompted him to go look for the old boy? NOTHING! Just suspicion, right? UGH! So how does one write through that, then? Well... with plenty of false starts, deleted paragraphs, rewriting... oh, and then... THEN... What's the Doctor going to do? What's he going to say? "to hell with the universe, there's no power stopping me from getting to her" or "Yeah, sure. No worries at all. I'll just sit here and twiddle my thumbs until the timelines synch up a little more and I can go in there and help out the woman I love because I really am a patient man"?

Oh, time for a rather fast change in the direction that THIS fic is going to take... Sighhhhhhh... I can still work it from here. I can. Noooooo worries ... I'll just have to give creativity a shot.

I certainly hope you enjoy. This is a long chapter filled with plenty of jibber-jabba and two Lords sizing each other up... Thank you for all of the lovely comments I'm receiving on this fic. It certainly fuels the creative process, that's for sure!

Oh, and the current ladder stands at: Chapters - 9, Author - 2 ... this chapter was the victor on this battle...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Trapp tipped his head to one side and narrowed a glare of challenge toward the Doctor. "Does the name Rose Tyler mean anything to you?"

The Doctor's entire body stilled at the question asked by the holographic interface image of his fellow Time Lord.

What did the name Rose Tyler mean to him?

Well. Plenty of things, actually. That name represented salvation: his salvation. That name was compassion and optimism, adventure and thrill, honour, loyalty and valour … the Valiant Child … Oh, that name taught him how to live and to even love again.

When darkness loomed and all seemed lost, that name – that glorious name – gave him the joyous light, hope and inspiration to keep going.

The words Rose Tyler should have been listed in any and all synonym lists of word courage. Her fierce bravery was contagious; so contagious that even in his most cowardly moments he felt as brave as she was.

If he were to put it in simple terms: That name meant everything to him.

And the owner of that particularly magnificent name was at the galactic centre of his entire universe…

…At least she was until she was locked away from him on the other side of a dimensional wall.

His mouth flapped slowly as he tried to sound out a pair of words that he had only ever vocalised a handful of times inside of four centuries. He hadn't said it since the day he last saw her in a small marketplace on Greece two centuries ago and wasn't sure if he was able to even pronounce the words anymore.

He didn't deserve to say her glorious name. He truly didn't. He thoughtlessly abandoned her on a windswept and cold beach and left her at the mercy of a mad-man. He couldn't find his way through the walls to pull her free of his clutches and save her as she had saved him so very long ago. He'd let her down. He'd broken his promise to her and to Jackie. He'd failed her. He failed them both. He didn't deserve to say her name…

He exhaled through an open mouth and attempted to make a sound. He managed only to increase the volume of a small whimper that was caught in the back of his throat.

Trapp tipped his head backward slightly and tightened his eyes at the sudden trance-like state that had overtaken the Doctor at the mention of Rose's name. It appeared that the rumours that circulated the Capitol might have had some substance to them after all.

"You know what," he breathed carefully. "Never mind. As I said earlier, I can certainly look into taking care of the situation myself without imposing on you, what, with you no longer being Gallifrey's Errand Boy." He turned to face the console of the TARDIS. "I will need to gather some information before I leave, however, so if you'll forgive my presence a moment, I need to speak with your capsule."

That quickly snapped the Doctor from his reverie. He broke from his frozen stance that still held Clara against his chest, pushed himself away from her and stalked across the clear Perspex floor toward the hologram. "You will do no such thing," he growled territorially.

Trapp ignored the Doctor's approach. He didn't even watch from the corner of his eye as the Doctor stood close enough to his projection as to be able to press his chest into Trapp's side. Instead, he offered the console a tender, friendly smile. "Hello, beautiful. My name's Trappullekestrupipusikontam, but you can call me Trapp." He paused, and then laughed. "Oh yes, or you can call me that if you like – although we'd have to keep it between just us, what, with the potential impropriety of such a name."

The Doctor sneered into Trapp's ear. "You can stop playing now. Every Lord and Lady knows that you can't engage in casual conversation with a TARDIS. Their telepathic receptors aren't compatible with those possessed by Gallifreyans."

Trapp continued to ignore him. He maintained a bit of small talk with the TARDIS instead as he allowed her to reach deep inside his subconscious to gain her trust. "I met your daughter a few hours ago," he continued gently, "and let me tell you, she's a very pretty girl." He winked and stroked at the console. "Beautiful, just like her mother."

The Doctor jerked backward just slightly. "Are you … Are you hitting on my TARDIS?"

Across the other side of the console, Clara spat out a sound of brilliant amusement that had the Doctor immediately fire her a glare. "Do you mind not laughing, Clara? It is not a laughing matter." He then flicked his head back to Trapp. "And do you mind not hitting on my TARDIS. She's a good girl that doesn't need to be rudely propositioned by a …" He disgustedly waved his hand up and down in the air ahead of him toward Trapp. "By a pretty boy Time Lad."

Trapp maintained his focus on the TARDIS. His image leaned down on his elbows onto the console edge. "Yes, dear. I give you my vow that I will do everything I can to make sure your beautiful daughter becomes absolutely magnificent." He paused a moment as though listening and nodded. "Yes. Very much so. She has in fact already chosen herself a worthy Time Lady as her bond mate." He lifted his brows and then smiled. "Her name is Rose Tyler. Do you know her?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed at the ease by which this Time Lord stranger spoke Rose's name. There was familiarity in his gentle and warm tone of voice. Familiarity that clutched at both of his aching hearts.

"My question to you, Lord Trapp – may I call you Trapp?"

Trapp tilted his head to look up at the Doctor. His brow lifted curiously. "Is that your question?"

The Doctor looked briefly puzzled. "Is what my question?"

"If you can call me Trapp," he stated with a sigh as he lifted up off the console's edge and folded his arms across his chest. He leaned his hip against the console. "Which you can," he stated with a shrug. "Far easier to recall and pronounce than the full version of it."

"My question," the Doctor breathed out with impatient accusation. "Is do you know Rose Tyler?"

Trap shrugged up only his right shoulder. "I wouldn't be so quick to claim that I actually know Rose Tyler in the manner that your tone is suggesting," he answered carefully. "I've met her. Yes. I've spoken with her. Yes I have. I am aware that she is a remarkable woman who is a nurturing spirit and holds the love of not one, but two female Pundeharhirans." He looked to the console a moment. "This one, and the dear little one clipped from what this beautiful lady tells me was taken from… Where was it again, dear?" He listened, licked at his lip and then lifted a brow. "Part of Your bedroom wall." He gave the Doctor a one-sided smirk of judgement. "A rather intimate gift, wouldn't you say?"

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his head and cleared his throat somewhat uncomfortably. "I don't really recall just where I obtained that particular chunk of TARDIS." He awkwardly wrung his hands together and then lifted one in a nonchalant gesture that fitted in with a shrug. "Just found it lying around. Could've been from anywhere, really."

Trapp nodded as he carefully shielded a smile. "No. It was definitely from the bedroom, and TARDIS is quite insistent that it wasn't as much found as it was torn from her wall."

The Doctor's entire stature fell into a slump of embarrassed incredulity. "And just how would you know that?" He pointed harshly toward the console. "I know that she didn't tell you. Communication with TARDISes simply doesn't work that way."

Trapp twisted slightly to show the Doctor the left side of his chest and then drew a finger along an embroidered patch emblazoned with high Gallifreyan text.

The Doctor pulled his rounded glasses from his pocket and slid them quickly onto his nose. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the patch for a short moment. He remained in his lean, but lifted his head to look past his nose and up at Trapp's holographic image. "I must be experiencing some leakage of my intelligence and common sense as I age," he drolled inside a huff as he finally straightened himself to a stand. "The way you referred to the TARDIS as a Pundeharhiran should have alerted me to your role in Gallifreyan Society." He slid his glassed off his face and pocketed them with a sigh. "Although in my own defence, it isn't common that an Arcalian takes post at the Cradling facilities. It's much more common that your Chapter aspires to council posts."

"That's what my wife thought, too," Trapp admitted with a sigh as he thrust one hand into his trouser pockets and set the other on the console edge. "When she petitioned to arrange our betrothal, that is."

The Doctor smirked. "Marriages arranged by the house Kithriarchs are always exciting aren't they?"

"In seeing how they ultimately fall apart?" He shrugged. "Mine lasted approximately three minutes after she discovered that I was a lowly Hyperloom technician with zero aspirations to run for council."

The Doctor rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. His voice was low and almost friendly. "There's nothing lowly about working with the young TARDIS, Trapp. It is, in fact, quite an important role to the society of Gallifrey and the Time Lords. Due to the additional synaptic requirement of Gallifreyans to properly connect with the younglings, not everyone can do it. Historically speaking there have only been around fifty Time Lords that were loomed with the telepathic compatibility to connect with them."

"Yeah. I'm four fifths Gallifreyan, one fifth Pundeharhiran," Trapp agreed with a shrug. "I was loomed into this."

The Doctor's brows lifted. "Intentional genetic grafting at looming, then?"

Trapp shrugged. "I was loomed in an Arcalian Chapterhouse – there was nothing intentional about it."

Clara peeped from her side of the console. "So you're part TARDIS?"

"Pundeharhiran," he corrected gently with a smile. He tipped his head toward the Doctor. "Only he calls them TARDIS. And yes, I do have enough genetic mutation to claim heritage to that glorious species." He tapped at his temple. "Mostly in here of course. It means I'm able to communicate and empathise with them, which helps maintain the strength in relationship between both Time Lords and Punderharhirans."

"Are you bigger on the inside, too?" she teased with a chuckle.

He opened his mouth to answer the question, but paused and looked toward the console with wide eyes. He then smiled, blushed, and petted the console. "Oh. That's very kind of you to say, sweetheart."

Clara dipped her head curiously and walked around the console toward him. She looked to the console. "What'd she say?"

Trapp gave her a smile. "That the people she meets always seem to be so much bigger on the inside than even she is."

The Doctor pressed both hands into the console's edge. He leaned down and clicked disapprovingly before speaking in a quietly amused voice. "I know that he's very pretty, dear, but will you please stop flirting with him? It's quite undignified, you know."

Trapp burst out an involuntary snort of laughter through his nose. The exhale had enough violence in it to have him needing to wipe at his nose.

The Doctor glared up at him. He lifted first his finger, and then levered his body up to a stand. "Whatever she just said to you; it's not true."

"I'm sure it's not," he replied in a strained voice. He lifted both hands and released the tightness in his mouth to let a smile spread across his cheeks. "And even if it was, you'll get no judgement from this Time Lord. I agree that she's very sexy."

He turned to walk away, but twisted to point a finger at him. The finger shifted to indicate the rotor column. "My oldest and most trusted friend," he accused petulantly. "Even you're turning against me."

Trapp shook his head. "She isn't, really. She's just being playful. I imagine it's been quite some time since she was able to really communicate with another." He pursed his lips hopefully and lifted his brows in urging. "Any chance you might want to do a stopover at the Shipyards and let me give her a long overdue tune up?"

"I'd much rather not, thank you," The Doctor muttered in reply. "I've little to no desire to materialize anywhere near the arm's reach of Council and its guards." He let out a long suffering breath. "Every time I materialize on Gallifrey, I walk into an alleyway of Time Lord police officers with instructions to arrest me for some random crime that I'm rarely actually involved with."

Trapp shook his head. "I actually think you'll find…"

"Because Council – for some undetermined reason…" He paused and considered that a moment. "Okay. There may be a couple of definable reasons for their animosity, but it's mostly just overreactions on their part." He thrust one hand into his trouser pocket and lifted the other to gesture lazily in the air with a rotating wrist. "I find it quite amusing how they can so easily ignore their own misgivings and treasonous behaviours that results in a call to the Doctor to save their collective arses, but I forget to initiate communication with Traffic Control one time and land my TARDIS inside the Panopticon…"

"I think you may find that opinion has changed, Doctor," Trapp cut in shortly. "There have been many favourable changes made to the general attitude of council since Lady Romanadvoratrelundar was reinstated to her position as Lady President."

The Doctor's eyes lit up and a smile crossed his slightly sunken features. "She has? Oh, that's marvellous! What happened to old Rassilon, then?"

Trapp's expression fell to one of panic. "Uh."

The Doctor wrung his hands together and hunched slightly as he walked around the console, stopping only to offer Clara a cheeky wink. "I can't see the old man rescinding his power without a fight, and the protections that surround him rules out any successful assassination attempts." He paused and looked upward with a grimace of concentration. "Quite possibly the additional protections afforded to ruling parties was partially because of an incident that occurred when I was in my fourth incarnation…"

"And your current incarnation?" Trapp asked in a slightly strained voice. "What number are you currently on?"

The Doctor's head quickly levered downward. His expression was unreadable, but not unfriendly. "Thirteenth and final," he answered with a light shrug. He then grinned and opened his arms. With a hunch still in his shoulders and his neck slightly pulled, he did a single twirl. "And I've never looked younger!"

"Oh," Trap sang in a strangled tone as his face contorted into a tight wince. "Too early, then."

The Doctor quickly breathed out a note of realization. He practically glided across the floor; a lightly hunched glide; to put himself chest to chest with a holographic image within a second. "It's never too early for a Time Lord," he corrected. "Never too late, either. Not when you have a Time Machine handy." He petted the console. "Which I do."

"You have a Time machine without connection to Gallifrey and therefore are unable to navigate across the void," Trapp corrected. He inhaled and straightened his back. One hand settled on his hip and the other raked through his slightly cropped dark hair. He held onto his breath a moment before he continued to speak; and when he did, it was to himself more than the Doctor. "Which means you're not going to be as much help as I'd hoped."

The Doctor leaned in to him again and lowered his voice so that it was barely above a whisper. "I think you'll find that I can always be of help when it's required." His tone shifted slightly on the other side of darkness and he levered a glare of deep green. "Especially when the one needing my help is someone I care about."

"And how much do you care for her?" Trapp asked with a cautiously quiet voice.

"Does it matter?"

"When she tells me that she doesn't matter," Trapp countered gently. "Then it might."

The Doctor tensed with Trapp's words. He remained in his light stoop at his side; his only movement the light heave in his chest as he breathed and a slow pulsing movement of his hands into fists. "She said that?" he asked inside a whisper that held a universe of hurt.

"She refers to your association with her as being acquaintances."

The Doctor's head dropped. There was an infinite sadness in his whisper. "I see."

"And that she would prefer that you didn't become involved in this current quandary." Trapp belatedly realized that his words and his matter-of-fact tone of voice could probably be taken as offensive, but he didn't make any efforts to retract it to lessen the sting. Instead he huffed out a long breath and took a step away from the Doctor. "I'm sorry. This was a monumentally bad decision on my part to reach out to you at this moment."

The Doctor's head remained held low. His voice was quiet and resigned. "Do you know that I last saw her almost two centuries ago," he admitted slowly. "And since then I've spent countless hours of every day working with my TARDIS, examining transdimensional flight data equations and theories in an attempt to find my way to her."

He lifted his head in time with a deep inhale and looked to Trapp with tired, ancient, hollow eyes. "I have been met with brick wall after brick wall and failure after Rassilon-damned failure." He sharply raised his finger when Trapp opened his mouth to speak. "But I will not. Ever. Not until the last trace of Lindos falls from my body and I finally end up inside my tomb on Trenzalore." He inhaled. "I will not give up on finding my way back to her."

He lowered his head and his voice saddened. "Even if she doesn't want to see my face or this TARDIS ever again, I'm going to find my way back to her." He swallowed thickly. "And you know why that is, Lord Trap?"

Trapp blinked twice, but said nothing.

So the Doctor answered for him. "Because she matters. Rose Tyler matters to me. She always has, and she always will matter."

"Because you love her?" he guessed quietly.

The Doctor's head remained low, but he smiled at the answer. "Love." He lifted his head and repeated the word in its high Gallifreyan translation. Trapp shuddered at the lyrical sound of their language curling around a word that was rarely spoken on their planet.

Clara gasped and her delicate hand flew to her mouth. "That sounds beautiful," she gushed quietly. "Absolutely beautiful."

"That's because love is beautiful," the Doctor said with a smile and a slight tilt in his stand to look around the central column toward her. "But it's also cruel and very ugly."

Clara's eyes watered and she shook her head at him. "Don't say that." Her voice was a whisper.

The Doctor looked back to Trapp and drew in a long breath. "When I saw Rose Tyler nearly two centuries ago in a quaint little market place on Greece…"

"Earth?" Trapp clarified.

"Yes. Earth," the Doctor said with a nod. "It was a rather balmy day out. I was there with my friends the Ponds and River Song."

"Your wife," Trapp ventured.

"Not in any particular traditional sense," he replied with a tip of his head and a lift in his brows. "But when the moment seems appropriate we admit a union." His eyes widened. "Although we don't tend to engage in any typical married-like… things … regardless of any rumour you may or may not have heard or read on Gallifrey." He cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly strained tone of voice. "And if it's in any records at the Capitol that I may have engaged in such … then she probably found a way to put it in there."

Trapp blinked, but said nothing.

Clara, on the other hand, she had a dimpled smile of response for the Doctor. "With her personality, Doctor, I don't know how you couldn't have had marital relations with her." She looked toward Trapp and winked cheekily with enough sauciness as to pick up her entire cheek in the expression. "So full of sass and fire and attitude that one."

"Yes," the Doctor replied with a light smile of affection. "She's quite the woman." The smile fell. "Still. Haven't had the pleasure of her acquaintance for some time. Oh. Almost two centuries, in fact."

"Around the same time you began to search for Rose Tyler," Trapp murmured to himself as he drummed his fingers on the console's edge. He lowered his head to look at a blinking light and tipped his head to one side in curiosity. "Hello…."

"Completely unrelated set of circumstances," The Doctor assured hotly. He frowned as he watched his fellow Time Lord crouch to look underneath console of the TARDIS. "Do you mind not poking around the innards of my TARDIS. I am quite adept at ensuring that she is in perfect working condition, thank you, and I don't appreciate having another Time Lord – or anyone – poking around in there."

"I'm a holographic image," Trapp called up from underneath the console. "No ability to touch and tinker like I'd like to. Can't do much more than take a sniff around down here, and then give you my own personal feedback on what you need to change in order to have this beautiful woman operate much more efficiently than she is right now."

The Doctor leaned over the console's edge and toggled at a switch beside a lighted dial. Very quickly Trapp let out a yelp and fall backwards on his ass. "What in the name of Omega…?"

The Doctor leaned down and spoke against his ear. "Holographic images might not have the ability to touch, but due to the telepathic nature of the transmission it is absolutely possible to have my ship issue a locational ping toward your TARDIS via the holographic interface feed. Most unfortunately for you, this telepathic information transfer must travel via your postsynaptic neural transmitters." He smirked. "It can tend to sting a little."

Trap scrambled to a stand and brushed himself off in an attempt to shield his embarrassment. "Well played, Doctor."

"I usually play it well," he replied with a smirk. The smile fell. "Now. Let's dispense with the chit-chat, shall we? Would you care to tell me just what is happening with my Rose Tyler, and give me the appropriate spatial coordinates for me to go to her."

Trapp pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No can do right now, I'm afraid." He opened his mouth as the Doctor opened his to argue and shook his head. "The Timelines aren't aligned correctly with your current incarnation."

"With my current incarnation," the Doctor breathed out flatly. "Lord Trapp, this is my final incarnation."

"Yes," Trapp breathed out slowly. "It is."

"And as I am four centuries inside this incarnation," he continued quickly. "And with my typical hold on a face being considerably less than that number, and negating the fact that assumptions make an ASS of both U and ME, I will assume that the projected length of my remaining time in this universe isn't all that much longer."

"No," Trap agreed through pursed lips. "Likely not, although stranger things have happened and longevity extended through less dangerous endeavours."

"We both know that's quite unlikely."

"Maybe."

The Doctor blinked suspiciously. He let that word hang a moment inside his mind and then shook it free. "I don't believe that the inconsistency in the timelines can be really that much of an issue."

Trapp rubbed at the back of his neck and winced. "Yeah. You'd think that, wouldn't you?" He blew out a breath and set his hands back on the console. "Right. Here's what I can do. I can have my Capsule issue a reminder program to your TARDIS that will activate when the timelines align. At that moment, the program will issue your TARDIS with the spatial coordinates and the appropriate connectivity with Gallifrey Traffic Control to issue you the transdimensional access for you to be able to traverse through the dimensional plane." He drummed his fingers on the console edge. "I will provide you with my exemption codes so that you don't have to wrangle with the beaurocratic fools that head up that department."

"I don't tend to wrangle, Lord Trapp."

"No," he breathed out with another rub at the back of his neck. "Legend does suggest you're more likely to creatively demand and get your way with very little effort on your part."

"Not all legends are accurate," The Doctor muttered dryly. "I've faced and taken on my fair share of disciplinary actions."

Trapp pushed himself off the console with a grunt. "That's what I can give you for now. I really do apologise for the error in my timing of this transmission." He looked to the Doctor. "The coding we had to reach your TARDIS was sorely outdated. It was fortunate that although in the midst of a war, the matrix was able to record and store the information received during your last communication with Gallifrey."

"Just how long has it been since then?" he queried curiously with a tile in his head and a pinch in one eye. "Because it's only been two weeks for me. You make it sound like centuries have passed."

Trapp inhaled through an open mouth. He held that breath and his mouth gaped for a long moment before he finally staggered that breath out as a series of negative hums. "Nice try."

"It's not a difficult question for you to answer."

"Actually," Trapp remarked with a shake in his head. "It is. Now. If you'll excuse me. I should be off. I made a promise to a Time Lady and her beautiful youngling that I must keep." He stepped back from the console, but pointed at it. "Tedendugalia – my ship – will transfer the information to your TARDIS…"

"Will you tell me that she's okay?" The Doctor asked quietly as he moved slowly toward the console and a rather large black keyboard seated underneath a monitor. "Rose Tyler. Tell me that her life isn't in danger?"

"I don't want to lie to you,' Trapp began. He then licked at his lip and then shut his mouth.

The Doctor's head dropped. "The last time I saw her, she appeared lost and terrified."

"The last time I saw her," Trapp offered in an attempt to provide hope. "Mere hours ago. I was a lucky witness to her glorious laughter. She was beautiful and healthy and full of life." He caught the Doctor's surprised look. "It isn't a surprise to me that a Time Lord would want her affections for his own. The flow of time ebbs around her in a rather magnificent way, doesn't it?" He smiled a rather cheeky grin. "And to have the unwavering love and devotion of a Pundeharhiran youngling barely out of her cradle …"

He whimpered out a sound of awe. "If she wasn't a married Lady, then I might have to express intent."

The Doctor's gaze hardened, but he didn't turn toward Trapp. "Any consent of union toward Rose Tyler would have to come through me, and I'll make it quite clear to you that no man of Gallifrey will get any such permissions." He exhaled through pursed lips, but still kept his eyes on the monitor. "Noone is worthy of her…"

"Especially not you, I'm guessing."

"Apparently not," breathed out.

Finally he slid his eyes toward Trapp and scrutinized him a moment. "You tell me that my Rose Tyler is happy and vibrant and so very full of life and majesty, yet for some reason you've found it necessary to look me up and track me down."

Trapp straightened up, set one hand on his hip and carded his fingers through his hair. "Yeah."

"Might I ask why?"

Trapp winced just slightly. "An overreaction?"

The doctor tipped his head to one side and narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "I could almost be bought into that excuse. You are a Time Lord, after all." He drew in a deep breath. "And if I hadn't seen her panic for myself the last time that I saw her, I just might."

"To be perfectly honest with you, Doctor, if I hadn't seen her reaction to Pendra's request for a symbiotic link with her, I wouldn't have suspected a thing was wrong."

"Pendra," the Doctor queried carefully, "is her youngling TARDIS?" When Trapp nodded he rubbed at his chin and nodded slowly. "Rose has never been at all comfortable with anything going into her mind." He lifted his eyes toward the rotor column. "When she learned of the mild link formed by the TARDIS to ensure that the Translation circuits would be effective, she wasn't at all impressed." He blew out a breath through pursed lips. "As we continued to travel together there was another incident that involved a telepathic attack via psychograft." He sharply held up his hand when Trapp hitched in a startled and horrified breath. "Dealt with and the device destroyed."

"So she's had telepathic intrusion in the past."

The Doctor nodded.

"Which makes her that much more susceptible to attack," he ground out. He then looked the Doctor with anger in his eye. "Are you familiar with her husband: John?" He paused a moment. "Or Vale as she also refers to him." He levelled and hardened his gaze. "And if that moniker means what I think it does…"

The Doctor's eye twitched and his lip curled for a fraction of a second. "If it does then that just makes him my responsibility, doesn't it?" he warned darkly. "And I'm more than willing to take on that responsibility right now."

"Does he know about her previous experience with unsolicited psychic attacks?"

"He should know," the Doctor growled out. "He was there for all of it." He lowered his voice so that it took on a dangerous tone. "Is that what he's doing to her?"

Trapp shook his head. "I honestly don't know. I'm speculating more than anything. For all accounts Rose seems perfectly fine and full of spirit…"

"But you're sensing something amiss."

Trapp exhaled a long breath through parted lips as he rubbed at the back of his head. His voice was breathy. "I probably should get back, I think. It's probably nothing – just the romantic in me looking to rescue a beautiful damsel in distress."

The Doctor snorted. "You're a Time Lord."

Trapp lifted his brows. "Yes. That is a fact that must be taken into consideration, I suppose." He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and shrugged. "And so, on that note. I think I've trespassed for quite long enough now."

"Take me to her," the Doctor demanded on a hoarse whisper.

Trapp shook his head and frowned with apology. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I can't." His frown deepened to a wince. "The timelines, you see."

"I don't care what damage you think will happen to the timelines," he growled with a slap at the top of the console for added effect. "This is Rose Tyler. My Rose Tyler. I need to make sure, to see for myself that she's okay. I want – no, need - to see her."

Trapp shook his head. "I'm sorry." He exhaled and then drew in a long breath. "As I said, I'll upload the necessary programming so that the moments your timeline synch's properly with ours…"

"And in the meantime, what?" He snapped. "I'm going to spend the next however long in a state of irrational fear as to her safety…"

"I'll have the date coordinates be five minutes from now," Trapp vowed firmly. "In her timeline it'll be moments."

"And yet how long will it be for me?" he questioned coolly.

How could he tell the Doctor that the time between now and then could very well be almost fifteen hundred years? That was far too cruel an answer for Trapp to give.

"You can make yourself forget," Trapp offered instead as a quiet reminder of a Time Lord's abilities. "You can make yourself forget me, the salvation of Gallifrey, Rose's situation, everything." He looked up into the Doctor's face. "I'd really recommend that you make yourself forget."

The expression that crossed the Doctor's features was one of utter disbelief. "How can you expect me to make myself forget?"

"It's either that, Doctor, or you'll drive yourself insane." He held up his hand when he heard the Doctor hitch in a breath to speak. "You can't ask me take you to her – because I won't."

The Doctor snorted out a derisive breath through his nose. "Instead you'll show up for no reason except to shove it in my face the idea that the woman I have harboured deep feelings for throughout three incarnations and nearly five centuries is in pain at the hands of a madman of my own creation…"

"Of your own what?"

"…And then leave with the expectation that I'll quietly stand back and not do what it takes to collapse the walls between dimensions to get to her." He leaned in close to Trapp's holographic image and snarled against his face. "You might want to drop by the Panopticon library and do a little more research into the Doctor, Lord, Trapp. I have never listened to any advice given by any Time Lord, and I certainly don't intend on starting now. When someone I care about is in trouble, then I become a very very dangerous man and there is no power in this entire universe that will stop me from destroying whatever and whoever gets in my way of getting to them." He panted.

Trapp cleared his throat awkwardly, but refused to back down. "Two centuries, Doctor."

The Doctor's eyes pinched at the reminder. His hand thrust out to his side and he palmed a big orange button on the console. There was darkness in his voice that made even Clara shudder. "Now get off my ship."

Trapp's image crackled, zapped and then disappeared into the console with a breathy inhale from the TARDIS. Immediately the darkness inside of the Doctor vanished. He let out a hurried breath and ran a hunched gait around the console toward a computer terminal, the monitor of which burst into life and blinked urgently before the Doctor had skidded to a halt in front of it.

Clara watched with wide and worried eyes as the Doctor went from terrifying to manic in the span of a half-second. His eyes were as wide as those of one of her students as he switched his attention between keyboard and monitor.

"Doctor," she called worriedly. "Are you? Is everything alright?"

He held up a finger without looking at her, and then drew that digit back to pound heavily on the keys of the panel at his hands. His breath panted as he staggered his short bouts of typing to focus on a blinking cursor on the screen that would open up to a long string of text, and then would begin typing once more.

After a long few minutes of seemingly battling against the onboard computer, he swiped his hand across the console and let out a victorious yell.

"And Geronimo!" he called out sharply. He shot an excited look toward Clara and grinned. "Hang on tight, Clara. This might get bumpy."

Clara immediately thrust out her hands to hold onto the edge of the console. "What's goin on, Doctor?" she queried in a voice mixed with worry and excitement. "Where we going?"

"Well, my impossible girl, we are piggybacking on the temporal wavelength signal being emitted by a second TARDIS…" he chuckled to himself and rolled his eyes. "A TARDIS piloted by a young Time Lord who doesn't realize just how brilliant I am …."

"Enough self-congratulations, please," Clara warned with a shake of her head.

"Right. Yes," he said with a sharp nod of his head. "It's been a while since I've had to use this delightful little feature on my TARDIS – what with no other TARDISes flying through the vortex in at least four hundred years – but I've activated my Tracking Monitor Control Board to lock onto the navigational units of Trapp's TARDIS. In a quaint little hokey-pokey marriage between the interstitial antennas of both ships, I've been able to track his ships path with my Time-Curve Indicator to be able to accurately determine his destination and time vector information for materialization."

Her brows lifted and she tightened her hold on the console's edge. "In English, please?"

The Doctor looked slightly put out. He used both hands to gesture toward the monitor. "But I'm being brilliant here, Clara. Can you just pretend to understand what I'm saying for once and let me have my moment?"

She shook her head. "I'm a teacher, Doctor. It's not in my nature to pretend to be impressed. My profession is all about grading and judgement."

He flopped his hand through the air in a dismissive wave. "Oh, then what good are you?"

She chuckled through a toothy grin. "In lay terms, please?"

He pouted a rather petulant purse of his lips. "I've got a metaphorical lasso around his ship and he's dragging us to parallel 110-25b-654-1-00, at galactic coordinate 58044 684884. Otherwise known as Pete's World, Earth." He waggled his brows at her and grinned with a light dance in his shoulders. "Now do you think I'm clever?"

"That remains to be seen." She yelped as the TARDIS pitched suddenly to the left, to the right, and then to the left again." Oh, this is bumpy isn't it?"

He petted the console affectionately. "She doesn't like crossing dimensions, do you darling?" He gripped onto the edge of the console to maintain his balance and looked to the monitor. "She's locked on the dsestination vectors and is separating from Trapp's ship. We should eke out of the turbulence shortly as she orientates herself properly inside the parallel vortex." He slid just his eyes to look toward Clara at his side. His voice softened as the shaking around them stopped. "Looks like she's found it," he ventured cautiously as his eyes lifted and looked around the expanse of the command room. "Go on, old girl. Get your bearings. Find her. Find Rose Tyler and take us to her."

The time rotor roared to life and the console room seemed to sway as the ship launched herself through the vortex funnel. The Doctor smiled. "You are a sexy girl," he said quietly. "And so very clever."

Clara swallowed over a dry tongue and battled for a moment to hold herself upright. She looked between the Doctor and the rotor column, but chose not to comment. He looked like he was otherwise occupied with his own thoughts.

Finally the whining and wheezing of the ships massive engines dulled out and the entire TARDIS went silent except for the low hum of her standby systems holding her stable.

The Doctor let his eyes shift across the ceiling for a moment more, and then turned his entire body to look toward the door. "We're here," he managed with a slight shake in his voice. "Here. In a parallel world. Where I shouldn't be."

Clara shook her head and slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be so daft," she chided. "She needs you. This is exactly where you need to be." She looked to the door, took his hand, and tugged him toward it. "She might be fooling herself into thinking that she doesn't need you around…"

"Needing and wanting are two very different things," the Doctor corrected as he trailed almost reluctantly behind her. "She may well need me – but she might not want me coming to her rescue. Rose Tyler is a very self sufficient, brave, amazing woman who…"

Clara paused at the door with her fingers curled around the lock for the door. "What, Doctor?"

"Who needs me a lot less than I need her."

Clara shook her head. "I don't think so, Doctor. All of us, every one of us who has ever met you needs you in their life." She twisted the knob and unlocked the door. "You're like an addictive drug."

"Thank you for that comparison."

She bumped his shoulder with hers and pulled open the door. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face to dispel the dust floating around in what looked like a basement. "Oh. My."

Her eyes fell on Trapp and – who she assumed was Rose – standing at the very edge of the room. Trapp was in the midst of heavy and desperate apology. His hands were gently curled around her arms and he tried to please for her attention with light movements of his head into her field of vision.

Rose 's attention, however, was locked on the man who strode out of the TARDIS behind Clara. Her breath drew in with gulps and fell from her lips as a harsh exhale. "Y-You," she managed breathlessly, and it was difficult to tell if she was happy or upset to see him.

The Doctor gave her a timid smile, one that quickly changed to a wide grin. He bent slightly at his knees and leaned back to brace himself as he opened his arms to invite her into a long-overdue hug. "Rose Tyler. It's so good to see you."

Rose roughly ripped Trapp's hands away from her arms with a fierce movement of her hands and shoved at him as she stalked by him toward the Doctor. Her eyes were dark and furious as she lifted her arm to point her finger toward the TARDIS.

"Get out of my house," she demanded angrily. "Get away from me and never come back."