"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?"

Rose's feet stopped moving of their own accord. Unfortunately, the rest of her body kept on going, and it was only by a quick awkward jumping step that she kept from falling. The Doctor glanced back at her in concern. "Tripped," she explained lamely. "And, um… no, you haven't. Been too busy running round saving the universe, I guess."

He favored her with a kind, quietly sad smile. "You're lying," he observed; then held up one hand to forestall her protestations. "Nonono, that's all right…" he turned to put his eyes back on the path, stepping carefully through a field of jagged stones. "I'm sure I had a good reason for it."

"Sorry," she said anyway, careful to step where he did just in case any more holes should open up beneath her feet. She knew she should have let it drop there, but now that the subject had been broached, it hung before her like a tantalizing… shiny thing. "That's where you're from, isn't it? Gallifrey?" she ventured finally. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but this might be the only chance she'd ever have to find out anything about the place. Her Doctor always turned so sullen whenever the topic came up.

The Doctor paused a moment to glance up at the overcast sky. "I'd point it out to you, if the clouds weren't in the way. And if I had any idea where we were," he added with a grin, raking a hand through his hair.

"What's it like?" Rose asked.

He tossed her a wondering glance, then evidently decided he didn't want to know why his other self wouldn't have told her anything. "Bit like Earth, actually," he said airily, resuming his stride. "Blue skies, green grass…" he smirked slightly. "Lot of stuffy boring bureaucrats…"

"Take it you're a bit of a black sheep, then?" Rose grinned.

"Oh yes. I was President once," he segued, looked thoughtful a moment and counted on his fingers, then amended, "or was it twice? Either way, I got out of it in the end. But the trees," he shook a finger imperiously, jumping topics like a flea, "they're what get the oohs and ahhs."

"And why's that?" she asked dutifully.

He smiled happily. "They're silver. Stand on a hilltop at midday, and it's one great shimmering sea of brilliant foliage, stretching far as the eye can see!" He flung his arms out and did a little skip, twisting and walking backwards for a few strides so he could see her reaction. Rose laughed. "And if you're lucky enough to land there in springtime, when the magentas are coming into bloom…" he sighed, grinned and advised, "You really should get me to take you sometime. In the springtime. I know I tend to wander, but still, home is home, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Rose replied, feeling some of the joy he had momentarily transferred to her ebb away into the thick mist. She'd never see Gallifrey. He'd never see his home again. But she wasn't supposed to talk about that. She tried to think of a way to change the subject delicately, but the Doctor seemed to sense her sudden mood shift and, with a sympathetic smile – not that he could know what he was being sympathetic about – turned to face forward again.

"Ah, here we are," he announced a minute later, as they topped a riser in the ground. Up ahead through the fog loomed the uncannily familiar shape of a blue police box.

"Haven't changed it much on the outside then, have you?" she observed.

He gave her a look of shock at the notion that he'd ever want to change the exterior. "I rather like it this way, don't you?" She was trying to muster a polite excuse out of that one when she caught the look in his eye and realized he was teasing. She punched him lightly in the arm, earning a wounded, "Ow," and then he fit his key to the lock and let them inside.

Rose hesitated on the threshold. "This won't cause a paradox or anything, if I come inside, will it?"

"What's that?" The Doctor spun, coattails flapping, to look at her, having already bounded up to the central console and begun flipping switches. "Oh. No… no I don't think so," he said in a rush.

"But then I'm very rarely sure of anything that happens in cases like these," he added, after Rose had already set one foot inside. She froze mid-stride, glaring. He gave her an almost-apologetic smile. "Sorry." He made a vague pointing gesture with two fingers that somehow encompassed the expanse of the room. "Universe doesn't seem to have imploded, though." He turned back to the TARDIS controls, mumbling busily to himself.

Rose craned her head about and simply stared. This was not the control room to which she was accustomed. It was big, of course, her TARDIS; but this was… big. Really, really big. "Gothic," she observed, to a polite grunt of absent acknowledgement from the center pillar. She tapped a toe against the floor – stone, not the metal grating she was used to – and musingly padded over an ornate rug to lay a hand on one of the metal support columns. The columns were in the wrong place, of course, but as the room was so much larger she supposed they'd have to be spread out a bit differently. Bits of statuary and other esoterica were on scattered display about the room, which was illuminated primarily by what seemed to be gaslight. She waved a hand near one of the lamps, then touched it, cautiously. Cool to the touch. And across the room, opposite the door—"Cor, you got a library in here?" she asked wonderingly as she swished past the Doctor to investigate.

He stopped his fiddling for a moment to turn and watch her, leaning against the edge of the console. "Not really," he demurred, as she walked along the bookcase, dragging a finger across the spines of the tomes on display. "Just some of my personal collection. The library's—"

"Third left, second right, down the stairs, across the walkway, seventh right?" Rose glanced back with a grin.

"No," he had to think a moment, "that's the arboretum." He rubbed a hand over his lips, frowning slightly. "At least I think it is…."

Rose laughed. "She likes to switch rooms around on me, too. Ooh, this is signed!" She had picked up one of the leather-bound books and was carefully paging through it.

The Doctor abandoned the console and moved over to see what it was. "Ah, that's one of my favorites," he approved. "Signed first edition, actually."

She snapped the cover shut to read the title aloud. "The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells." She gave him an impish grin. "What, when you've got the real thing right here?"

"No substituting for the classics," he quipped, and then, still smiling: "We have a problem."

Rose set the book down. "What?" She could see a bit of her Doctor in that almost-manic grin, and she knew that never meant anything good.

"Well, it seems the main time engines are offline."

"Can't you fix it?"

"It's not broken."

"Then why—"

"No power," the Doctor mercifully cut to the chase. "It takes a tremendous amount of power to travel through space and time, you know."

"Yeah, I know. So, what, did you forget to gas up before you left?"

He smiled wryly. "It doesn't quite work like that. You see," he took two long steps back to the control console and began flipping switches again, "the TARDIS is actually powered by a stable black hole…" he trailed off for a moment, then let out a satisfied, "Aha," of triumph as the ceiling suddenly fuzzed out and was replaced by a holographic star map. He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and scanned upward, reaching for Rose's elbow with one hand and pointing with the other to direct her gaze. "You see: there."

Rose was too busy gawping at the fact that the ceiling had suddenly split open to the heavens. "Thought you said there was no power?" she demanded.

He glanced at her. "Just because you haven't got the energy to run a marathon doesn't mean your heart stops beating, does it? Essential functions still work."

She waved her hand at the staggering overhead display in disbelief. "And this… this is an essential function?"

"To a TARDIS? Being able to see where you are, plot a safe course through space and time? Essential as breathing," he concluded, turning his eyes upward again. The hand that had been pointing reached out blindly to turn a knob by his side, and the view zoomed in on one of several indistinguishable star systems amid the array of galaxies. "There," he proclaimed, pointing again, "You see?"

"No," said Rose, truthfully.

"Precisely," he agreed brightly. "It's a black hole. Nothing to see. But it's there, all right. The Eye of Harmony, anchored just outside of space-time in delicate balance, with…" his expression went slack for a moment as he concentrated, twisting another dial and swinging the view around again. "There," he smiled broadly at the bright nebulous object now in focus, and glanced at Rose for her approval. "Gallifrey."

Rose stared. Just knowing what it was she was looking at made it quite possibly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. A shimmering beacon of life in the cold blackness of space. And the thought that it no longer existed… would no longer exist… she tore her eyes away and tried to smile for the Doctor. He seemed so happy, so eager… God. Coming here was a mistake.

He seemed a mite disappointed at her lackluster response. "Well, I guess it doesn't look like much from this distance."

"No, s'great. Really," Rose insisted, awkwardly patting the sticky-soft velvet over his arm. Then she changed the subject. "So what's this Eye of… what?"

"Harmony," he replied automatically, turning back to the control panel. "Every TARDIS maintains a link out to it… provides near-infinite energy… but," his brow furrowed, "the link appears to be down. That shouldn't happen."

"You don't have a backup generator or anything like that?"

The Doctor smirked sheepishly. "Never needed one before." He thumbed another switch and glanced up at the large display as an overlay of characters appeared. Rose didn't recognize the alphabet. "Well that's something," he muttered, almost to himself, then in a louder voice, explained, "She's still in contact with the Space-Time Matrix. We may be outside of ten dimensions, but we can't hide from the eleventh!"

Rose tried to pretend that that had made any sense. "So what does that mean to us?"

He grinned. "Means we can navigate out of here. Even though 'here' isn't technically anywhere. We can lock onto the signal from the Matrix and use it as a beacon. I wonder why your TARDIS was blind," he trailed off, musing.

Rose made a noise approximating intelligent curiosity on that point, feeling some sort of response was expected, and pulled out her phone. "Think it's about time I called the Doctor, then."

"Hm? …Oh! My other self; yes, of course."

Time Lords, Rose decided as she plopped into an overstuffed armchair and brought up the dialing menu on her phone, were an odd lot. Then she had to amend the thought, as technically, she supposed, she'd still only met one of them. Would only meet one of them. She shook her head. Well, the Doctor was an odd lot, then. She pressed the 'call TARDIS' button and waited, four whole rings before he answered.

"What kept you?" she demanded in a playfully stern tone, before he could utter a word.

"Neck-deep in wires and circuits trying to figure a way out of this mess, thanks," he retorted smartly. "Any luck over there?"

"Yeah, the Doc… the… fellow with the fancy clothes, you know who I mean, he says he can plot a way out of here, by using some sort of Matrix thing?"

"The Space-Time Matrix?" the Doctor's voice turned oddly thoughtful.

"Yeah, that was it. But we've got no main power. Something about a connection to black hole gone missing, or something."

"The Eye of Harmony."

"Right, glad you know what you're talking about." There was a long pause, and Rose wondered if she'd lost the connection. "Doctor?"

"I'm here. Was just thinking." Another pause, but this time she could hear his meditative exhalation, and waited patiently. "You got a speaker option on that handset?"

"Yeah, why, you want to talk to both of us?"

"No, I just asked for academic purposes. Bloody humans."

Rose grinned and held the phone away from her ear while she poked the speaker button. "He wants to talk to you," she called the other Doctor over, thumbing up the volume. "Hello Doctor, can you still hear me?"

"Loud and clear. Now listen. I've got an idea the two TARDISes can get us out of this mess."

"I'm all ears," averred the eighth Doctor, leaning over the back of Rose's chair.

"Rose tells me you've got navigation coordinates to get us out of here?"

"Yes," the Doctor raised his voice slightly so as to be heard clearly over the mobile. "My TARDIS seems to've maintained a connection to the Matrix that yours hasn't. But I can pass the coordinates over to yours easily enough."

"Fantastic. But you've got no power."

"That's right."

"Well, we do."

"Now what a coincidence that is," Eight mused whimsically. "I lose my link to the Eye, but stay in contact with the Matrix, while you—"

"No, my connection to the Eye is down too." To Rose's ears, trained to the Doctor's familiar voice, he sounded a bit strained. "But I've got an alternate power supply."

"We must have designed it after we get off this rock, as a safeguard against further such incidents," Eight suggested. Rose tried not to process that sentence, for fear that her brain might explode.

"Could be," Nine agreed. "Listen, we'll have to get the TARDISes in closer proximity in order for mine to jump-start yours. If you can run a beacon from there, I can pop over."

"Easily done," said Eight.

"Do it, then. I've got about another hour here before she'll be flight-worthy, though. Just sit tight. Rose: mind you don't drop and break him by accident."

"I'll try," she replied with a grin. "See you in an hour, Doctor."