"I see we've redecorated again," was Eight's comment as they crossed the dimensional threshold into the TARDIS control room. He didn't approve; Rose could feel it in the tension of his supporting hand on her back. But being, apparently, far too polite to pass judgement on another man's TARDIS (even if the other man were himself), he said nothing further of it aloud.

This did not stop Nine from glowering in a hostile fashion as he stepped in from the inner doorway and held out his hand, expectantly. "Need to get you to the infirmary," he addressed Rose without looking at her.

Rose sighed, feeling rather like the ball in a game of Keep-Away. "Thank you," she whispered to her escort, took her Doctor's hand, and managed somehow to wait until they were well down the corridor before demanding of him, "Just what's gotten into you, anyway?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," he replied gruffly, his stride lengthening of its own accord. Rose found herself suddenly hard pressed to keep up; but he stopped abruptly when he heard her involuntary gasp of discomfort. "Oh, Rose…" his grip tightened on hers for a moment, then popped open as he turned to face her fully, putting both hands on her shoulders.

She frowned at him, not sure whether to be annoyed or concerned. The hostility had faded from his face; his gray-blue eyes were hard with some other emotion she couldn't immediately place. Pain? That didn't make any sense. And then he did something else that surprised her: he apologized.

"I'm sorry, Rose," he said, then paused as if not sure where he was supposed to go from there. "It's just… I was worried about you, all right? And then I saw him, and…."

"S'alright," she smiled, poking him playfully in the chest. "Guess if I ran into myself I'd feel a bit out of sorts too, yeah? But really, what you so worried about? I mean… if he's you, he's not bloody likely to hurt me, is he?"

The Doctor exhaled a rueful sigh, reclaimed his grasp on her hand, and continued down the hall at a more sedate pace. Rose waited patiently for him to speak, leaning companionably against his arm as they walked.

"It's not that," he said finally. "Look, this isn't the first time I've run into myself. It's just that every time I do, I always feel like I'm up for some kind of evaluation. Like I don't quite stand up to expectations. And none of us ever likes what we've done with the TARDIS," he added after a moment, with a small smile.

Rose returned it; then replied thoughtfully, "Seemed to me you were the one doing most of the judging this time." His expression creased fretfully; but they had now arrived at the infirmary and she waited until she'd gotten stiffly settled in a chair, and he had crossed the room to poke through a supply cabinet, to continue. "He can't be all that bad, can he? Seems nice enough to me."

"It's not that," he repeated his earlier protestation, his shoulders slumping briefly before he turned back to tend to her bruises. "It's not that at all. In some ways," the words came slowly, as if the admission were physically painful, "he was the best of all of us." Rose winced as the sonic vibrations of the device in his hand penetrated her abused muscles. "This might hurt a bit," he warned her belatedly, glancing up with an apologetic look. "Give it an hour, though, and it'll be good as new. Well, almost. Still be a bit of bruising, can't avoid that. You mustn't say anything to him about my planet being gone."

Rose blinked at this unexpected, awkward segue. "What?"

He gazed at her in earnest. "I'm dead serious, Rose: he doesn't know yet. And he can't know. That's why I stopped you before. It's dangerous to know too much about your own future." His voice was bitter, and she guessed this was a lesson he had learned the hard way.

Nevertheless, she couldn't help but ask, "But… if you warn him… couldn't he stop it? I mean, if there's a chance…"

The Doctor's eyes flickered away to the floor, unwilling or unable to let her see the tears shining there. "Things have to happen as they happen," he stated roughly. "Don't tell him. It would destroy him, Rose… it'd destroy me." He pressed his lips tight together and continued his work in silence.

Only when he was finished did he flash her his familiar smile again; and then it was as if his dark mood had never struck. "Good as new!" he declared, patted her on the shoulder (she winced), and dropped the gadget on the counter. He paused then, eyebrows knitting together as he thought of something. "Exactly how did you get so banged up again?"

Rose smiled weakly. "You were too busy one-upping yourself to ask." She passed a hand over her eyes and sighed, feeling like an utter buffoon. "I fell in a hole, all right?"

"Well what'd you do that for?"

She felt a snicker pushing at the corners of her mouth and forced it back by biting her lip. She knew he could see it hovering there anyway, but she found herself not really caring. "Good thing I did, else you might not've found me, and then you wouldn't be able to help yourself get us out of this mess, yeah?"

"I almost didn't hear you anyway," he replied thoughtfully, his eyes going distant for a moment; and she realized—

"All right now, that's just bloody weird."

His gaze snapped back into focus. "What?"

"You were… remembering that just now, weren't you?"

He grinned, broadly. "Yup." Rose felt woozy. The Doctor chuckled and helped her out of her chair, waiting patiently as she clutched his jacket for balance, until the blood had stopped rushing to her head. "Go on, have a hot bath, you'll feel better," he suggested. "I've got to have a chat with myself, sort some things out."

"Don't you go… wandering off," Rose tried to sound authoritative, but it was difficult as a yawn forced its way up her throat.

"Won't go anywhere without you, promise." He gave her a gentle shove toward the door. "Off with you, now."

The TARDIS obligingly rearranged her corridors so Rose didn't have to walk far to get to the large bathroom; and when she did, she found a tub of hot water already waiting. "Thanks," she addressed the empty air, peeled off her dirty, sticky, sappy clothes and sank without further preamble into the soothing, steaming water.

She must have dozed off, because when she was next blinked to awareness the water was tepid and her fingers had completely pruned. She also felt a great deal better, true to the Doctor's word. She pulled herself out of the tub and wrapped herself up in the large, fluffy towel hanging on the wall, murmuring another thank-you to the time ship for the consideration. "Know you're busy enough healing yourself, old girl," she smiled fondly, then slapped a hand to her forehead. "God, I'm starting to sound like him… and now I'm talking to myself," she realized a moment later. "Fantastic." She giggled.

A short, towel-wrapped dash down the hallway to her room, and a fresh change of clothes later, Rose returned to the control room, tucking her phone into her pocket and raking fingers through her damp hair. She found the Doctor – Doctors – chatting casually amid a minefield of wiring and dismantled control panels.

"There she is," observed Eight with a smile, nodding a greeting her way while Nine grumbled over a tricky wire splice. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks," she murmured, stepping up to the railing and peering mystified at the mess they'd made.

"Try it now," said Nine briskly, looking up from a circuit board on his lap. Rose put a hand quickly to her mouth to stifle a snicker at a black smudge of solder on the side of his prominent nose.

Eight saw it too, and flashed her a mischievous grin, touching one finger to his lips in a shushing gesture as he turned to flip a couple switches on the main control panel. "Nothing," he reported, tilting his head up to peer at the monitor bank. "No, wait…" he lifted his right hand, hovered it carefully over the console for a moment, choosing the precise spot and moment, and then gave the central pillar an authoritative thump with the side of his fist.

The main monitor flickered on.

"There we are," he announced brightly.

"Fantastic," enthused Rose's Doctor, clambering to his feet and stepping carefully over a tangle of wires to read the data on display. Almost immediately he frowned. "That's not right."

"Odd," agreed his counterpart.

"What?" said Rose.

"Well, we—" the eighth Doctor paused abruptly, glancing at the ninth in case he should prefer to do the explaining again; but upon receiving a distracted wave as his other self dove back into the circuitry, continued. "We've got the sensors back on-line," he explained, sidestepping around an open access hatch in the floor to join Rose at the railing. "But we don't seem to be anywhere."

Rose gave him a dubious smirk. "How's that possible? Obviously we're here, we're somewhere."

"Not according to the TARDIS," he replied, perfectly serious but at the same time, somehow, unconcerned. He chewed on his lip, thoughtfully. "Your TARDIS, anyway."

"What d'you mean, you think yours might have a better idea?"

"Or a different idea, at any rate," he agreed.

They both turned their heads at a disgruntled oath from the central pillar; then the ninth Doctor stepped over the access hatch, twisting his arm to settle a dislodged fold of his jacket, and requested forthrightly: "Rose, let me see your phone."

Puzzled, but having learned long ago that this was a perfectly normal state of mind when dealing with this particular nine-hundred-year-old time-traveling alien, Rose drew her phone from her pocket and handed it over. He fiddled with it for a few moments, then grunted.

"Like I thought."

"What's that?" the other two asked in unison.

The Doctor turned the phone around so they could see the display. "No signal," he announced, smiling grimly. "We're not only nowhere, we're nowhen."

"Surely you couldn't get a signal from that, anyway?" puzzled the other Doctor.

"He modified it," Rose explained briskly, quite used to this question.

"Ah." Eight's eyebrows climbed upward appreciatively, and he grinned. "Haven't lost my touch, then."

"Came in first in jiggery-pokery," Rose nodded, "or so I hear."

"Sounds like me." Eight rubbed the side of his nose in an outwardly absent manner, causing Rose to have to fight off another fit of giggling. Nine narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but before he could demand an explanation the shorter Doctor placed his errant hand lightly in his coat pocket and spoke again. "If I may make a suggestion then, I'd like to feed this data to my TARDIS and see what she can do with it. Between the two of them, the old girls might just figure it out."

"Sounds like a plan," Nine nodded briskly.

"Can I go too?" Rose didn't realize she'd spoken until her own blurted words echoed in her ears. She cleared her throat, not sure why she suddenly felt embarrassed. "I mean… I'd like to see it, that's all. Another TARDIS."

"It's the same TARDIS, Rose," her Doctor informed her in a long-suffering tone.

"Right, like you two're the same Doctor?" she grinned. "Want to compare notes, that's all. I'll come back," she reached across and prodded his leather-clad elbow, teasing. He frowned and folded his arms defensively. Such a child, she thought with fond exasperation, then looked to the other Doctor for a second opinion. "So is that all right, then?"

"I don't see why not. I'm parked about two hills over; are you up for a bit of a hike?"

"Long as we avoid any gaping holes."

"Well here, don't forget your phone this time," the ninth Doctor insisted, shoving the device back at her.

Eight glanced at it curiously. "I thought you said it didn't work here?"

Nine looked smug. "Got a direct line to the TARDIS. She can call here from anywhere in the universe, doesn't need a signal."

"Ah, well that's handy."

"Thanks," said Rose, tucking the mobile back into her pocket. "We'll just pop on over there, then, and call back here, soon as we've got something useful.

"Don't get lost," the Doctor admonished. "And remember what we talked about in the infirmary."

Rose pressed her lips together momentarily, casting a suddenly apprehensive glance at the eighth Doctor, who blinked back at her with frank innocence. "No problem," she decided boldly, and then flashed her Doctor a cheeky grin. "We'll be back before ten."

"Oi! Off with you," he waved, gruffly, turning back to his vivisected TARDIS console.

Eight looked slightly confused for a moment at this exchange, then shrugged and led the way outside. He paused to get his bearings in the oppressive fog, smiled, announced, "This way," with jaunty confidence, and set off down the hill.

Rose kept close on his heels, fascinated for the moment just by his gait. Her Doctor had a tendency to bolt and pounce upon things. This one… strolled. But he didn't lose any time in doing so. She almost stumbled over him when he stopped suddenly and stooped to pluck something off the ground.

"Now that's interesting," he mused, flashing something shiny between his fingers. "How did you get here?"

"What is it?" Rose asked, curiously, and privately a bit smug that the Doctor got distracted by shiny things too. He flipped the object neatly her way. She caught it awkwardly in both hands, not having expected the pitch.

It was a penny. Rose stared at it in bafflement. Abraham Lincoln's stern visage winked at her from the shiny copper.

"Not yours, is it?" asked the Doctor.

She shook her head. "Not mine… I don't carry American cash about with me. And besides, it's dated twenty-second century."

"Hm," said the Doctor, and clattered off down the hill. "Seems we're not the only misplaced things that ended up here. Suppose there's a great mountain of matchless socks around here somewhere, too." She hurried to keep up with him. "You're from… when?" he asked. "Late twentieth, early twenty-first century Earth, I'm guessing? Mind that crack."

Rose sidestepped quickly to avoid the crack in the ground that had been about to leap up and twist her ankle something fierce. "Yeah. Two thousand five…" she frowned. "No. Two thousand six, now."

The Doctor chuckled. "Gets a bit hard to keep track of, after a while."

"Oh, no, I'm a year off because the Doc… I mean… you? Landed us twelve months off target, instead of twelve hours." Another frown, "Or is that will land? Bloody verb tenses."

"Willan on-land, I think," quipped the Doctor cheerfully, "but that's a bit more grammar than I like to deal with before tea. Have I taken you to see Gallifrey yet?"