The Doctor was pleasantly surprised when they landed in Scotland next and he discovered his new body's propensity for imitating accents (something that his previous body had been rubbish at). What was decidedly less pleasantly surprising was the werewolf from space hunting down the Queen of England. And then, of course, he had to go and top himself by getting knighted and exiled within the span of just a few moments.

"Don't think I've forgotten that ten quid, either," Rose reminded him cheekily as soon as he had piloted the TARDIS back into the safety of the vortex. "I refuse to take exile as an excuse. I still won, fair and square."

The Doctor whinged about it and put up a fuss just to make her laugh, but in all honesty, money had never really held any sort of importance to him.

But all playful banter came to an abrupt end when Rose scuffed the edge of her boot against the TARDIS floor grating and screwed up her brow as though she were in deep thought. They were sitting a companionable distance apart from one another on the console room jump seat, but at her sudden change in attitude, the Doctor leaned closer in an attempt to catch her eye as he asked, "Rose? What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, just ..." she sighed as she shook her head and continued to stare hard at the floor, "something the werewolf said ..."

"What did he say?" the Doctor asked, his tone low and serious as he carefully inspected her expression for any hint of a clue.

"He said ... there was something of the wolf about me." Rose shook her head quickly from side to side, but it did nothing to soften the hard line between her brows. "I know that it's silly, but ... it made me remember something. It's hard to explain, though. It was like a dream ..."

The Doctor swallowed hard as he continued to carefully monitor Rose's expression. He knew exactly what the werewolf had been talking about, but was it safe to tel Rose the truth? He had yet to make himself sit down and have this conversation with her. It seemed that now was as good a time as any ...

"What do you remember?" he asked gently.

Rose flashed him a doubtful look out of the corner of her eye before returning her gaze to the floor grating. "It was back on the Game Station, before you ... changed." When the Doctor made no response, she took a breath and turned to face him fully. "What happened?" she asked insistently. "You never properly explained. I want to know, Doctor."

The Doctor's eyes were soft and pleading as he gazed back at her, wishing desperately that they didn't have to have this conversation - but he already knew that if it didn't happen now, Rose would just continue to circle back to it until she eventually wheedled the information out of him.

"Tell me what you remember first," he encouraged her quietly.

Rose sighed heavily and cast her gaze to the time rotor as though the TARDIS might give her the strength that she needed to deal with the Doctor's stubborn evasiveness.

"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, where there was this singing and a light," she explained slowly. "Everything after that was just ... images and feelings, but they were all ... confused and out of order, somehow? I don't know how to explain it. But then you kissed me and it was just ... gone."

"You looked into the time vortex," the Doctor agreed, forcing himself to meet her confused gaze with a calm, reassuring expression. "You had all of time and space running through your head. You became someone - well, something else."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, a hint of panic entering her tone as she gazed back at him in wide-eyed shock. "How is that possible?"

"You called yourself the Bad Wolf," the Doctor continued, leaning even closer than he had been before but still not daring to reach out and span the small distance between them.

"So ... those words really were a sign," Rose muttered thoughtfully, her expression screwing up once more as she thought back on the two words that had seemed to haunt them from the very first moment that he met her. "They led me back to you after all."

"They led you to your death, Rose," he corrected her grimly. "No one is meant to hold the entirety of the time vortex inside their heads - that's why all of those memories have been erased from your mind. The time vortex was killing you."

"But ... but you ..." Rose was looking at him with that wide, horrified expression once more and it broke his hearts to see sudden realization dawning over her features. "I remember the light going into you, that's why ... that's why you kissed me."

Well, it hadn't been the only reason why he had kissed her, but the Doctor decided to keep that information to himself for now.

"Does that mean ...?" Her words trailed off on a gasp and he could see sudden tears building behind her eyes as she repeated, "Does that mean ... it was my fault that you died?"

"What? No, of course not!" the Doctor denied instantly, having no other thought than to stop Rose's tears before they could fall. Rose Tyler should never be crying - especially not over him.

Good, clever Rose wasn't fooled, though. She groaned and brought her hands up to hide her face from him, which in a way was even worse than the tears.

"Rose, don't," he insisted quietly. "Don't blame yourself, not for this. Besides, look at me! I'm fine!"

"Yeah, but you weren't," she reminded him, her tone coming out watery and uneven from between her fingers. "You were hurt and then Earth was almost destroyed at Christmas and it was all my fault."

The Doctor hushed her as soothingly as he knew how, his hand hovering nervously around her shoulders before settling lightly against her back. In this new body he was still so awkward when it came to touching her - not quite sure what was allowed and what wasn't.

Rose quickly eased his anxiety, however, when she leaned into him and buried her face in his shoulder. "Can you ever forgive me?" she murmured quietly into his suit.

And the request was simply so ridiculous that the Doctor couldn't stop himself from chuckling out loud. In his eyes, Rose Tyler could do no wrong. What was there to forgive her for?

"Rose, listen to me," he insisted, bending his arm more securely around her shoulders. "Would you go back and change it, if you could? Would you have stayed on Earth and walked away and never gone back to the TARDIS? Would you have been able to just say goodbye and let me die on that Game Stations 200,100 years in the future?"

"No ..." she admitted quietly.

"Well, I wouldn't change any of it, either," he explained, turning his nose into her hair and allowing himself the simple pleasure of just breathing her in. His lips were already just barely grazing over the warm skin of her forehead, so it was a simple thing to press in a little further and leave a few comforting kisses there.

"I would gladly die a thousand times over for you, Rose Tyler," he admitted, squeezing his eyes shut tight against that terrifying revelation. His free will when it came to her had disappeared long ago, he already knew that - but admitting it out loud was a confession that he never thought he would have had the courage to do.

"Don't say that," Rose chided him lightly, but she wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled him closer and the Doctor knew that he had somehow managed to find the right thing to say.

"Promise you won't send me away again," she continued insistently.

But the Doctor knew that that was a promise that he would never reasonably be able to keep, and he wasn't about to lie to Rose Tyler, so he calmly shushed her again and placed more kisses against the crown of her head, pressing a thousand other promises into her skin and her mind as he projected feelings of peace and devotion towards her.

Rose's satisfied sigh was answer enough, and they were content to let the conversation drop there for the time being.