The Doctor was itching with the need to run once more - to officially break this body in and see the wonders of the universe anew - so when they finally headed out and planned to depart from Earth once more, he immediately set their destination for further than they'd ever gone before. he might have also been trying to top himself in a childish attempt to impress a certain Miss Rose Tyler, but (even if that were true) he wasn't about to admit that to anyone - least of all himself.

But it was all worth it just to be able to feel her leaning her full weight against his arm and smiling up at him as though the Doctor had somehow created the entirety of this planet just for her enjoyment.

"Can I just say ... traveling with you ... I love it," Rose murmured sincerely.

There was another odd flare of something between them, then, that made the Doctor's hearts skip a beat. It was something that he had never experienced before - something that blinked like a warning light in the back of his mind - but he pushed it forcefully to the back of his mind and stubbornly ignored it. It was his first trip out with Rose and he was determined to make it a good one.

"Me, too," he replied emphatically. "Come on!" The Doctor took her hand without any further warning and tugged her down the rolling apple grass hills. He still hadn't been able to convince himself to raise his mental shields again, and as her flash of excitement jolted through her skin and tingled along his spine, he wondered if he would ever actually force himself to get around to doing that.

Rose insisted on taking a moment to lie out and enjoy the view and he didn't have it in him to deny her, so they rolled out his old coat and stretched out side-by-side with one another. Still, the Doctor couldn't seem to stop himself from filling their idle moments with words, and Rose - clever girl that she was - used the opportunity to remind him of their "first date".

"We had chips," he mused, easily remembering that day from not so very long ago when he had first begun to admit to himself that this special, beautiful, fantastic girl was so incredibly different from any other person he'd ever met in 900 years of space travel.

"You're so different," she admitted, unknowingly echoing his own thoughts as she peered intently down at him. The way she was scanning his features made him feel as though she were trying to catch a glimpse of blue in his now-dark-brown eyes and the thought left him feeling torn.

"New new Doctor," he supplied teasingly in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Rose laughed, just as he had intended for her to do, and the dangerously tense moment immediately dissipated into one of easy companionship once more.

But they weren't there for simple sightseeing, as much as the Doctor may have wished for it to be otherwise, and they didn't get very far into the futuristic alien hospital before they were immediately separated. The Doctor wasn't worried, though - they had spent a lot of their time traveling apart. It was one of the reasons why they worked so well together as a team - they were good at dividing and conquering.

But this time, when Rose returned to him, he could feel that something was ... off. Each time his hand would brush against her arm he could feel a sour sort of sensation in the pit of his stomach that he never would have associated with Rose before. Add that to the strange new way that she was carrying herself and the odd way that she was speaking to him and the Doctor had a pretty good idea that something bad was about to happen.

He didn't know just how bad the situation was, though, until Rose's hands were around the back of his head and her lips were slamming against his in a long, crushing kiss and everything inside of him was screaming, wrong, wrong, wrong!

The Doctor's mind reached for hers on instinct, eager to reestablish the connection that they had had the last time he had kissed her and the time vortex had been streaming between them, but his thoughts slid uselessly against what felt like a glass wall - an invisible, restrictive barrier that was keeping him separated from Rose. She pulled away before he could make sense of what it was, but the Doctor was fairly certain that the warm, glowing light that he had come to associate with Rose's mind was somehow locked away behind that invisible wall.

He tried very, very hard to keep his wits about him as he watched her flushed, breathless expression and forced himself to focus on the sensation of that barrier in her mind and not her blown pupils and perfectly pink lips ...

But there was no denying it, so he went ahead and admitted it out loud to himself as Rose finally stepped away and left him dumbfounded in her wake, "Yep, still got it."

It didn't take him much longer to uncover all of the nasty little secrets (including a basement full of sick humans and one persistent flap of bitchy skin) buried underneath the New New York hospital, and with Rose's mind on the line, the Doctor found that he was working at what felt like double the speed.

Thankfully, after that uncalled-for, intrusive kiss, Cassandra seemed content to keep her (Rose's) hands - and her (Rose's) lips - to herself, so the Doctor didn't have to worry about being distracted by the strange, empty feeling that he knew he would find echoing in her mind. Still, it was difficult to look into those familiar, amber-colored eyes and see someone else staring back at him. It made him sick to his stomach and angrier than he had been in a long, long time.

He really felt that rage begin to burn when Cassandra finally did relinquish her hold on Rose only to shove his own mind into the back corner of his skull so that she could take his new body out for a joy ride. The Doctor's mind flared against the invisible barrier that she trapped him with, but nothing that he did could break it. He felt as though he were suffocating to death and the fact that he knew that Cassandra was forcing this sort of thoughtless, cruel violation on Rose made him want to burn down the entire hospital until there was nothing left but ash and dust.

But the Doctor had spent more time than he cared to count pushing down the deep well of rage inside of him, and he forced himself to do it again as he quickly reconstructed the mental shields (which he really hadn't wanted to use again) and took Cassandra's (Rose's) hand in his once more. He knew that there would be no reasoning with her until the hospital was deemed safe again, so the Doctor was more determined than ever to keep her - whoever she was - at his side and get the whole place sorted as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, everything went according to plan, and the Doctor even got the chance to talk with the Face of Boe for a few moments before he had to go.

"Oh, I hate telepathy ... Just what I need - a head full of big face," Cassandra groaned under her breath. The Doctor wondered idly if Cassandra even really knew what she was saying - she had been inside of his head, after all. Did she know how much it stung the Doctor to hear her saying those words in Rose's voice?

But none of that mattered because a few moments later Cassandra was gone altogether and he had his perfect, whole companion back in his arms again and Rose was smiling up at him like she couldn't have possibly wished for a better sight upon finally waking up.

The Doctor realized with a jolt that the two of them hadn't been quite this close since before he had regenerated, and memories of his past life came flooding back with a sudden, vivid clarity. He realized that he missed Rose - had been missing her, ever since he regenerated. He knew that it didn't really make much logical sense - Rose had been there with him the entire time - but his death and subsequent regeneration had put a sudden, unwelcome hold on their relationship and the Doctor longed for that easy familiarity that they had shared before.

"Hello," she greeted him breathlessly.

And the Doctor liked that word so much better than the "goodbye" that he had been running from ever since the Game Station, so he took it and did what he always did - he ran with it.

"Hello," he replied warmly. "Welcome back."

His mental shields were crumbling again under the intoxicating proximity and the bright, happy look in Rose's eyes, but the Doctor couldn't quite bring himself to care in that moment. With both of them back in their right minds, he knew that he didn't need to keep any sort of protective barrier between them anymore. In fact, he didn't want any sort of barrier to remain between them - not anymore, not ever again.