"Feeling any better?" the Doctor asked as he collapsed heavily into the chair opposite the table from Rose. He had wanted to shepherd her into the TARDIS infirmary as soon as Cassandra had been dealt with and dropped off, but Rose had insisted that a warm mug of tea was all that she needed to feel better, so they had ended up in the galley instead.

She hummed noncommittally as she sipped from her steaming mug, giving him a strange, speculative gaze from over the rim.

"What about you?" she asked after she had taken the time to swallow and set the mug down on the table between them once more.

"I'm fine," he replied dismissively, waving his hand through the air as though to brush off her concern as he propped his chin up on his other hand and leaned casually against the table's edge. "Never better. Glad to have you back, though."

"That was ..." Rose's words trailed off and ended on a shiver, and she reached reflexively for her warm tea once more, as though that would help heal her scarred mind. "I can't even describe it, how it felt to have Cassandra in my head like that. It was so ... wrong."

"I'm so sorry, Rose," the Doctor sighed, running a hand wearily through his wild hair. "If there were anything that I could have done to prevent that from happening, believe me, I would have done it. What Cassandra did ... it was the worst sort of intrusion imaginable. There's a reason why those psychografts are illegal in most of the universe."

"You don't have to fuss so much, Doctor," Rose murmured quietly, flashing him a soft grin. "I know that's not how it's meant to be. I've had you in my head before, remember? And it was never like ... that."

"Right ..." the Doctor replied awkwardly. Because the truth was that he had been in her head before, but only in the slightest, most least-intrusive form of telepathic communication possible. He had expressed and received in turn emotions and thoughts from Rose, but they had never truly been in one another's heads before - not like Cassandra had been. To do so would be a form of intimacy that the Doctor wasn't sure if he could handle.

"Doctor?" Rose asked quietly, narrowing her eyes on him suspiciously. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing! It's ... nothing, really," he insisted emphatically. "Just glad that Cassandra didn't leave any lasting effects. Having someone in your head for that long can have ... consequences." The Doctor cleared his throat and cast her another furtive look out of the corner of his eye before asking, "How much of it do you remember, by the way?"

And he really hadn't meant anything by the casual question other than to assess Rose's mental health, but the way that she dropped her gaze and her cheeks immediately colored the most enticing shade of pink alerted him to the fact that he was going to get more of an answer than what he had bargained for.

"It's a little fuzzy," she admitted clumsily, her fingers fidgeting restlessly against the ceramic handle of her mug. "Parts of it were like I was seeing or hearing things through a glass wall, but I think I was ... aware for most of it."

And when she finally blinked and looked up at him from beneath her dark lashes, the Doctor was immediately reminded of their ill-timed kiss. This had not been what he had originally been trying to ask about, but now it was all that he could think of as the haunting memory of it flashed like a movie reel through his mind.

"Er, right ..." he murmured, clearing his throat again and glancing everywhere in the galley except for her. "Sorry, I just ... wanted to make sure that Cassandra didn't suppress anything that she shouldn't have."

"I think I should be the one apologizing to you," Rose muttered, letting out a breathy, nervous laugh that made his hearts skip a beat.

"No, no, it's fine," the Doctor insisted nervously. "I mean, it's not fine that it happened. Well, not like that, at least. I'm just saying that you shouldn't apologize. It wasn't your fault. Not that anyone is at fault, per se. It's just ... it's fine."

"Right ..." Rose muttered, staring at him as though he had suddenly grown a second head. She blinked a few times before she shrugged and added, "Well, it's not so bad, I guess. Could have been worse. The last time we kissed we had the whole time vortex to worry about, so at least we didn't have to deal with that this time."

The Doctor nearly smacked his head against the table as his chin slipped out of his hand in surprise. He spluttered and blinked at her for a few moments after, not quite sure how to respond. He hadn't expected her to just bring up their first kiss so casually like that, when they hadn't even really discussed what had happened on the Game Station yet.

Rose, for her part, was staring at him with a look torn between concern and amusement as he struggled for what to say next.

"That wasn't ... That was ..." he stuttered lamely.

"It's alright, Doctor. I was just teasing, don't get all nervous," she assured him with a light smile, but the furtive look that she cast in his direction from out of the corner of her eye spoke volumes. She had been curious as to how he'd react to her broaching the subject, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what the correct response was meant to be, and he wasn't about to mess this up by opening his mouth and letting the wrong words slip loose.

Did she want him to apologize? Was she looking for an explanation? Did she want him to do it again?

"Don't get nervous?" he repeated dubiously, raising an eyebrow at her in a teasing expression in an attempt to soften the truth that he could feel rising up in his throat. "Rose, you make me more nervous than most things in this galaxy - and I've fought off melchiadors during mating season with my bare hands. Twice!" The Doctor wiggled the fingers of said hand in her direction to illustrate his point and the goofy gesture won him a lighthearted giggle in return.

"You really are just as daft as you look, aren't you, Doctor?" she asked teasingly. Rose ignored his indignant retort and added, "Why would a silly little human make a Time Lord nervous?"

"Rose Tyler!" he exclaimed with a hurt expression that was only partially dramatized. "You are not silly, and you are most certainly not little. You're clever and brilliant and fantastic and beautiful and you could put an entire legion of Time Lords to shame." And he should certainly know - since she had him wrapped around her little finger.

"Sorry, what was that last one?" Rose asked, flashing him his favorite tongue-in-teeth smile. He thought he saw her cheeks go a bit pink again too, but he couldn't be sure if that was real or just his imagination.

There were many things that he wanted to say to her in that moment, but the Doctor knew that it wasn't the time. Those five critical words were still there, though - buzzing at the back of his mind and begging to be spoken out loud. But even if he couldn't quite force himself to speak those words just yet, he knew that there was at least something that he could give her - the Doctor had just enough courage to admit at least one, small truth out loud for her.

"You're ... beautiful," he repeated haltingly, forcing the truth out despite the way that it tried to stick in his throat.

Rose's smile immediately dissipated and the Doctor began to worry that perhaps he had said the wrong thing after all as she simply sat there and stared at him for a few moments.

Finally, though, her smile reappeared and this time it was so soft and sweet and genuine that it made him want to do something truly reckless - like blurt out all of the other words that he had bottled up and saved just for her.

But Rose Tyler stepped in and rescued the Doctor from himself - just as she was so very good at doing - and simply shook her head and laughed at him. "Sorry, I was just waiting for you to come up with some sort of ridiculous qualifier," she muttered lightly. "Still getting used to the 'new new Doctor', I guess."

"Come on, I haven't changed that much, have I?" the Doctor asked, hoping that his tone sounded more teasing than pleading as he leveled his gaze on her from across the table.

Rose hummed consideringly as she narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. Finally, her serious expression broke out into another wide smile and she placed her hand, palm-up on the table between them in silent invitation. The Doctor took her hand without a thought and the ease with which they settled into one another's grip really should have worried him, but in reality, it did nothing but fill him with an overwhelming sense of peace.

"I guess you're not so different," Rose admitted as she gazed deep into his eyes. "Not in the ways that matter, at least."

And then, for the first time since he had woken up from his healing coma, the Doctor felt Rose on the edge of his consciousness, her mind hesitating just on the outskirts of his thoughts as though she were asking permission to enter. He met her questioning mind with as much welcoming warmth as he could manage, and even though she didn't probe any further and kept a polite amount of distance between their thoughts, her winning smile was really all that the Doctor needed to feel as though everything was finally beginning to be put back to rights again.