"Doctor," Rose said tentatively from where she sat watching him pilot the TARDIS. This thin man clad in the long brown coat was the Doctor, there was no doubt about that, but he was not really her Doctor. Not yet. After all they had done in seeing off the Sycorax over Christmas, they had now spent a few hours in the vortex and she had been able to gather her thoughts. He was rambling and she was only half listening as she did to her mum when she went on, humming at the right places.

"… and the tiny little skimmagor's, well, you lot would call them grasshoppers, though they're nothing like grasshoppers, they jump though, so high for their relative size, rather like a flea come to think of it…"

"Doctor!"

He broke off at her slightly sharper tone, and looked around the central column with his questioning brown eyes. She missed the blue, but those eyes held so much emotion, refusing to let herself be distracted by him she leapt at the momentary silence.

"I was wonderin', how you know the right time." The question had been bothering her ever since she had sat the first night beside his bed after he had regenerated.

"I'm a Time Lord," he said as if that explained everything, it did not; it hid more than it revealed.

"'course, I knows that," Rose said and frowned as she tried to explain it. "But how? How do you know the right time, that little moment where's it's just that soft spot where it flows and you just know, yeah tha's the spot. Like sorta scratching the itch on your back you couldn't reach before and then you do."

She smiled as she waited for him to launch into his hundred mile a minute explanation with a diversion every second sentence that actually contributed to the whole when he reached the end of it, but in no way clarified anything. She did not expect him to step back from the console, his mouth slightly agape, staring at her with those dark eyes of his. They should be blue. Oh, she hoped he couldn't read her mind just then, it wasn't that she didn't like this Doctor, it was just that she missed the old one.

She shifted over in the seat as he strode over to her, brown coat flaring out behind him, but before she could pat it to invite him to sit beside her he lightly touched the sides of her head. His fingers on her temples. She eyed his hand, the one he had re-grown. New Doctor, stranger sights, and things that gave her the creeps. Yeah, she was back on the TARDIS, there was no doubt about that.

"Doctor, wha's wrong?" she asked, proud that her voice did not tremble. She had only seen him look this worried while trying to figure out what the Chula Ambulance had done to the people in the London Blitz. She blinked. They were so different, but that same anxious worry on behalf of others was still there.

"I'm not going to look at your mind, but I'm going to see if I got it all."

"All what?" Rose asked in alarm then it clicked. "The vortex? You took it outa me an' it killed you! It was killing me an' you got it all out. I'm fine. No headaches, no weird see all, feel all, know where the TARDIS dances and chase it to nudge it this way an' that."

The Doctor dropped his hands.

"What did you just say?"

"That I'm fine." She assured him.

"No, the bit about chasing the TARDIS."

"Oh. That's what the vortex does, see, it's irresistible. It's like someone ruffling the fur of a cat, makes her purr, so she wants more, see, but like a cat, she snaps when she's had enough. Tells the TARDIS to set you down."

She watched the slightly horrified expression on his face with growing alarm.

"It's not like that, but tha's the closest dream to it?" Rose tried to explain. "That's where the soft places are, the best place to skip out with the TARDIS, or the awkward place where the vortex bats you out with her claws."

He stepped backwards and spoke a softly musical language that she couldn't understand. He glanced up at the ceiling and repeated himself in the same words, changing one or two, his hands weaving about as he tried to word the concept to his satisfaction. He had a half dazed smile by the end of it.

"'s that your language then? How comes the TARDIS doesn't speak it?"

He blinked, cleared his throat and looked a little awkward.

"Well now, yeah, that's Gallifreyan, I was just trying to clearly word what you were saying. English isn't well suited to speaking about time. We have subtle words for what you're describing. Soft flow of time pooling at a particular juncture for a particular purpose, the careful balance of a moment, the teeter of a glass on the edge of a wall about to fall, we have words that describe these and perfectly encapsulate the meaning."

"'s like the Eskimo's have hundreds of words for snow."

"Rather like that, I imagine, now Rose Tyler, may I check that you're not in any danger—"

"Don' you go regenerating on me again, we'll find another way if that need's doin' yeah?" She interrupted him.

She saw the mulish expression in his eyes and grumbled to herself, but let him touch her head again with his cool fingers. She felt the slightest sensation of him nudge against her awareness. She shivered he was slightly different. The old Doctor had been gruff but warm; this one was all sparks and delight. She missed the warmth.

"I'm still me," he said softly. He was gentle, she'd give him that. She then realised what he'd said.

"Get outta' my head!" Rose pushed him away, flushing red.

He grinned awkwardly and rubbed at his hair.

"Well the good news is that there's nothing there—"

"Oi!"

"What, oh, if you want to take it that way," he teased and she shoved him, making him grin broadly.

"An' the bad news?" she asked.

"You're just a regular human asking me questions you shouldn't be asking!"

They sat contemplating this as the TARDIS hummed all around them.

"So, it got in my head, and changed things a bit. Like the TARDIS got in and translates for me, yeah?"

"The TARDIS is like you having a flat and someone put a radio in the front room to play music. The vortex went in, rearranged the walls and painted it yellow with pink polka dots."

"So, I've got pink polka dots in my head now?"

"Pink polka dots that can sense time, blimey, Rose Tyler." He looked so lost in that moment she had to reassure him.

"'s not too unusual for human's though. Gran Prentice used to say about how there was a time for everything' sommin' outta the Bible, but not just the seasonal stuff yeah? The knowing in your heart that this is the right time for this to be done, or that to be said. Said me mum had it when she wasn't chasin' blokes, had right trouble with blokes me mum. Said I had it, but never listened to it proper. Guess I'm listenin' proper now."

That didn't seem to reassure him at all as he ran his hands down his face and spun about to fiddle switches on the TARDIS console. That hadn't changed either. He couldn't keep his mitts off. She sniggered quietly to herself, glad his back was to her. Only now he was quiet. She wasn't sure she liked this version of the Doctor when he was quiet. He was too fidgety when he wasn't running his mouth.

"Doctor," she said softly and he turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'm still me."

He grinned broadly at that.

"And there's no one better!" he declared.