"Gallifrey is tedious," the Doctor said. "Getting there even more so. This may take a while. You may as well get--I say, are you all right?" He gazed at her with a worried expression.

"What?" Rose asked, puzzled. Then she glanced down. She had scrambled directly out of bed, and was only wearing pyjamas, the bottoms of which were muddy at the ankles. One was ripped at the knee and stained with dried blood. She recalled, slightly, that she might have fallen down the stairs in her dash to get to the TARDIS. She put a hand to her head; much of her hair seemed to be sticking straight up. She was fairly certain that her nose was red and her face tearstained.

"I must look a fright."

"Not at all," he replied, gallantly. "But there is a wardrobe past the--"

"I know."

"And a first aid kit in the--"

"Got it."

"And a spare bedroom--"

"I'm already there."

In retrospect, Rose realised, she should have asked for directions. Endless stairs, bookcases, and even bats--nothing was right about this place. She hadn't even been able to find the shower; so now she was sitting surrounded by bubbles in an enormous claw-footed bath. "Here I am again," she thought to herself. "Taking off across the universe with a man I don't even know." She felt a sudden pang of guilt: she hadn't told her mum, Mickey, or even Pete where she was going. Her family, the people who ought to matter most to her--she'd left them all behind--again--without a second thought. She closed her eyes and sank into the hot water.

"Rose."

Startled, Rose opened her eyes. "Doctor!" He was standing in front of the bathtub.

"Sorry to disturb you, but I need to ask you a question: in your travels with the--er--other Doctor, did you ever happen to acquire a trans-temporal passport? It's just that we're at the border, and--"

"N-No," she stammered, sinking down lower and hoping the bubbles hadn't all dissolved. "I haven't got a...trans-temporal passport. I've got a British passport, but that's at home."

"Oh dear," said the Doctor, leaning against a wall and stroking his chin. "That complicates things somewhat..."

"Look, do you mind? I'm in the bath!"

He seemed genuinely surprised at her tone, and shot her a puzzled look; an instant later, his eyes widened as if something very obvious had just occurred to him. "Oh! Right! I forgot. I'm--I'm terribly sorry!" He averted his eyes and was out of the room in an instant, quick enough to avoid the sponge Rose had chucked at his head.

Some time later, Rose reappeared--fully dressed--in the Control Room. The Doctor was involved in a heated discussion with someone on the view screen.

"No, I have not been asked to carry anything for anyone else. Yes, I packed my own bags. Yes, my TARDIS has been in my control..." There was a pause. "I am travelling with a non-Gallifreyan. No, she doesn't have a passport." Another pause. "Look, I can vouch for her. She constitutes no threat to advanced civilisations; she's a primitive--just yesterday her people were swinging from the--what? Human. Yes, that's right, human. H-U-M-A-N. Homo sapiens. Earth. Yes, I can hold." He flipped a switch, turning off view screen. "Fat, useless bureaucrats," he muttered to himself. "Blowing them up would be a public service--oh! Hello, Rose."

"Are we going to be able to get through?" asked Rose.

The Doctor sighed irritably. "Gallifreyan xenophobia is second only to Gallifreyan bureaucracy. Unless I can get some strings pulled, I'm foreseeing a three hundred-page application, six month waiting time--"

"Three hundred pages?"

"Welcome to Gallifrey," he said, smiling wryly.

"Is it also a Gallifreyan custom to walk in on someone In the bath? Because where I'm from, you don't just go barging in--"

"Ah yes, that," said the Doctor, fiddling with his watch chain. "Er...given the fact that there are no fewer than 16 billion intelligent life forms in the universe, all with their own sets of complex social customs and taboos that vary by decade, it's not entirely inconceivable that, on rare occasions, I might err in--"

The view screen whistled. Perhaps grateful for the interruption, he immediately swung around and flicked it on. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Fifteen. Yes. Yes. Yes. Not a problem. YES!" The Doctor punched the air.

"What?" Rose leaned forward, trying to see what was on the screen.

"It helps to have a few connections. Councillor Romanadvoratrelundar took care of everything. But...ah...there is one very tiny complication." He turned away, avoiding her gaze.

"What?" asked Rose.

"Just a...formality, really," he stammered.

"What?"

"It's nothing. A minor inconvenience."

"What?"

"Er...you've got to go through Customs."

-000-

"Ah, there you are," said the Doctor, brightly. "That didn't take long, did it? Not too terribly--"

"THAT was a 'minor inconvenience'?" Rose hissed as she stalked away from the Customs area.

"Well...er...I haven't actually been through the process, but I understand--"

"I've been probed, prodded, scanned, scrubbed, and scraped. I've had everything searched, and I mean everything. They took blood, saliva, sweat, hair, skin, urine...and poo! They wanted a poo sample! What do they want with my poo?" If Rose had been any angrier, she might have burst into flame.

"I'm terribly sorry, really I am. Anyway, you're through the worst of it. The exit requirements are--"

"WHAT?" she cried. "Exit requirements? Do you mean I've got to go through all that again when we leave?"

"Ah..." The Doctor twisted his watch chain through his fingers; then suddenly pointed at the amber sky. "Look at that! Marverlous! Such lovely weather. Come along now, Rose, the capitol is this way."

-000-

Rose stood in the marble antechamber, gazing up at the doors. How tall were they? Twenty, thirty feet? They swung open with an eldritch groan, pulled by bizarrely-attired guards.

"What are they wearing?" Rose whispered. "Silly hats and dresses?"

The Doctor shushed her as they were ushered forwards into a dark, wood-paneled office. A blonde woman sat at an ornate desk. Hanging behind her was a splendid gold shield, encrusted in jewels.

"Romana!" cried the Doctor. "So good to see you! It seems like only yesterday that you were screaming for my help and now--oh! Is that--no, it can't be--"

The shield of Rassilon," said Councillor Romana, smiling.

"But how? It was destroyed--" said the Doctor.

"We have found a proof for Eulenberg's conjecture."

"Ridiculous! Eulenberg's conjecture is unprovable," insisted the Doctor.

"Not if you correct for multiversional dimensional flux."

"What are you talking about?" asked Rose.

The Doctor sighed impatiently, "She means it's now possible to travel through Gallifrey's early history. Which is, of course, impossible."

"We do it mostly for archeological purposes, you understand," Romana added. "We snatch important artifacts moments before they are destroyed. We're reluctant to do anything else, as I'm sure you understand."

"Yes, quite," said the Doctor, appearing a bit unnerved.

"In any case," Romana continued, "it's a happy coincidence you're here. We were about to summon you, but it proved unnecessary."

"Summon me? Why were you going to summon me?" the Doctor asked.

Her expression turned grave. "You hadn't heard? About the contagion? No, I suppose not. You're always off exploring, oblivious to what happens here at home."

"You, of all people, should know that--" started the Doctor, but Romana waved him off.

"No matter. We caught the man behind it, and he's safely in custody. An old acquaintance of yours, actually."

"Who?" asked the Doctor, his eyes wide.

Romana smiled grimly. "The Master."