Rose had dedicated more than thirty years of her life to Torchwood back in Pete's World, and she had been forced to take command in more situations than she was able to count during her adventures traveling with the Doctor, but she still found the command and title of captain to be a weighty one all the same. The entire punishment platoon - what was left of them, anyway - were suddenly looking to her for guidance and leadership. So soon after losing Angie and Artie to the cybermen, her confidence was shaken to say the least, and Rose felt as though she was now working twice as hard to keep everyone in the abandoned amusement park safe and alive.
She was finally taking what she thought to be a well-deserved break when all of the sudden a shouting voice echoed out from the throne room behind her. "Oi, Clara!" he (whoever he was - Doctor or Cyberplanner) called loudly. At least he had continued to refer to her by the correct name while they were within the earshot of others.
"I'll see what he wants," Rose sighed wearily, flashing her current companion - a short, friendly man named Porridge - an exhausted smile as she set down the steaming mug that he had just offered her. "Call me if there's any change."
She returned to the throne room to find the Doctor in much the same state as she had left him. He greeted her with a wide smile that hinted at his true self, but Rose still approached him warily, making sure to keep a safe distance, all the same.
"Hey! Clara, there you are," he exclaimed happily. "Now, quick rundown - what's our weapons strength?"
"one big gun, five of those hand-pulser units, and a shiny black bomb that implodes the planet," she rattled off matter-of-factly as she flashed Angie and Artie a concerned look from where they stood along the edge of the room staring blankly at nothing.
"Yeah, yeah, that one!" the Doctor replied excitedly. "Now, tell me, does it happen possibly to have a remote triggery thing?"
Rose pulled said-trigger from her jacket pocket and waved it in his direction in silent response.
"Brilliant. Pass it here," he commanded, his eyes carefully tracking the movement of the long, black remote as it moved through the air before his face.
"No," Rose replied quickly, snatching the trigger back to her chest defensively.
"Why not?" the Doctor asked with a look of offense.
"Because," Rose replied simply. "I don't trust that you're you right now."
"Oh, don't worry," the Doctor murmured reassuringly as he tapped a finger to his right temple. "The Cyberplanner's hibernating between moves right now." He had lowered his voice to a whisper and he held his finger to his lips as though to quiet Rose and keep her from waking the evil entity in his head.
Rose gave one condescending bark of laughter as she shook her head at the Cyberplanner's obvious attempt at a ruse. "You must really think we're stupid, don't you?" she muttered under her breath. She leveled a hard glare at him as she continued, "You're in the Doctor's head - you have access to all of his memories. That means that you know who I am."
Rose took an intimidating step closer as she narrowed her eyes on the Cyberplanner with a fierce snarl. "So don't insult me," she snapped, her tone low and dangerous. "I've known the Doctor almost my entire life. I know that he would never go along with the suicide plan - not as long as it endangered other people, anyway. So why don't you stop wasting all of our time and just get back to your little game? I think it's your move."
"Alright, skin bag, fine," the Cyberplanner sighed as he rolled his eyes dramatically in her direction. "You got me. But come on, 'Clara' - don't you want to talk?" The obvious implied quotations around Rose's fake name made her hands clench into fists at her sides. "I have access to all of the Doctor's memories and emotions. Aren't you even the least bit curious? Wouldn't you like a peek?"
"No," Rose stated resolutely as she continued to glare at him. "I know everything that I need to know about the Doctor, and that's all that matters."
"Really?" the Cyberplanner sneered. "Are you sure? One hundred years is a long time to be apart, and you know how this one likes to get around ..."
Rose bit down roughly on the inside of her cheek as she wasted no more time and stepped forward to slap the Cyberplanner hard across the face again. Her hand stung from the impact, but that was nothing compared to the sting that she felt deep inside of her heart. She would not allow herself to doubt the Doctor - not now, after so much time, and certainly not because some insane cybermind was attempting to cruelly toy with them both.
"Ow, ow, ow! Yes!" the Doctor cried as he came back to himself with a jolt and smiled widely up at her. "It's me!" he exclaimed, pointing to his own face with a look of glee. His expression fell a moment later as he worked his jaw and his brow furrowed in consternation. "That really hurt," he grumbled.
"Doctor, how much longer is this going to take?" Rose asked, hoping that her tone sounded more authoritative than pleading as she leaned over the chessboard and met his eye. She wasn't sure how much more of the Cyberplanner's hateful, jeering remarks she could take - not to mention the fact that having to constantly slap the face of the man who she loved just to get him back into his right mind was wearing on her.
"Not long now ..." the Doctor began, but his words cut off on a cry as his left hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Rose roughly by the arm. She gasped as his fingers dug into her skin and she reflexively tried to shake him off.
"Doctor, what are you ...?" she asked nervously.
"It's not me!" the Doctor panted, grunting as he seemed to strain against himself. "He's got control of the left arm!"
"Doctor ..." Rose began, but her words ended on a sharp gasp as she suddenly felt a hard, vicious presence force its way into her head. She realized with a start that the Cyberplanner was using the Doctor's touch to reach into her mind and tear through her thoughts.
"Argh! No!" the Doctor shouted through gritted teeth. "Stop it, stop!"
"No! Doctor, make it stop!" Rose cried out desperately, yanking as hard as she could against his hold on her and putting up every mental shield that she could think of as she attempted to keep her wits about her. However, nothing that she did loosened the Cyberplanner's hold on her. As he clawed deeper into her mind, Rose felt as though she were being brutally torn apart from the inside out.
"Doctor, please! Please stop!" she begged, choking on a sob as she screwed her eyes shut tight and felt the pain of the Cyberplanner's violation penetrate deep into her consciousness.
Suddenly, her severed bond began to glow gold again and Rose gasped so hard that her throat stung, her eyes opening wide in fear as she dropped her gaze to the Doctor's strained, painful expression. "No! No, not that, please! Doctor, don't!" she shouted desperately. But the Cyberplanner had caught the spark of connection that flared between them and he was now chasing after it with tenacious glee. Rose could feel her knuckles going white and her neck straining as every part of her tried to scramble away from the Doctor's reach.
The bond was outside of Rose's control - it operated on pure instinct, and it reached for the Doctor's touch of its own accord. Nothing that Rose did could stop it from trying to connect with his mind, and with the Cyberplanner on the other end of the divide purposefully seeking her out, it just became that much more difficult to rein in the uncontrollable, subconscious part of her mind.
Just as Rose was beginning to feel her hold on her bond slipping, the Doctor suddenly cried out again and his grip on her arm shifted to the remote trigger that she still held tight in her hand. As soon as his fingers were around it, he ripped it from her grip and smashed it violently against the chessboard table - both of them watching in silent shock as the small device instantly broke into a hundred different pieces.
As soon as she was free, Rose stumbled away from the Doctor and used ever last bit of her remaining energy to simply remain standing as she watched him. She was shaking uncontrollably and her breaths were coming in great, heaving gasps as the muscles in the Doctor's arm slowly relaxed and he regained control of himself once more.
"He got what he wanted," he panted breathlessly as he hunched over the table before him, refusing to meet her eye. "He destroyed the trigger. My move."
"What do you mean 'he got what he wanted'?" Rose asked, her voice little more than a rough whisper.
"He means," the Cyberplanner snarled as he glared up at her, "good news, boys and girls. They're here!"
Thankfully, Rose didn't have to interact with the Cyberplanner for a third time. When the encroaching cybermen legions began to slow to a halt before her, she knew instantly that the Doctor had managed to somehow stop him. When she finally got back to the throne room, his face was completely cleared of the abominable silver wiring and he was straightening his bowtie proudly as he grinned at her.
"Ah, hello," he greeted Rose and her soldiers exuberantly. "Can someone untie me, please?"
"Is he gone?" Rose muttered, narrowing her eyes at the Doctor carefully as she approached him. "Gone for good?"
The Doctor, who had been avoiding her eyes ever since the Cyberplanner had barreled his way through her thoughts and nearly forced the two of them into a permanent, telepathic bond, finally blinked up at her. "Gone for good," he agreed with a hesitant smile. "Out of my head and redistributed across three million cybermen right now - and about to wake them all up, kill us, and start constructing a spaceship. We need to destroy this planet before they can get off it."
His explanation was spoken in his usual, rapid-fire way as Rose carefully stepped forward and loosened the ropes wrapped around his middle. As soon as he was free enough to move, the Doctor was off and bounding away - onto the next stage of his plan to rescue them all. Thankfully, the children were back in their right minds as well, and Angie seemed to be just as clever as the Doctor had supposed that she might be. They all watched in fascination as the unlikely Porridge voice-activated the planet-destroying bomb and then teleported them all right into the throne room of the Emperor himself.
Rose was shocked to discover that she had been in the presence of a powerful monarch throughout the entire day without even realizing it, but she was even more surprised when the Emperor - defender of humanity and imperator of known space - suddenly got down on one knee before her and asked her to marry him. From over Porridge's shoulder, Rose could see the Doctor's look of startled alarm as he flinched uncomfortably at the unexpected question.
Rose, however, declined the Emperor's untimely proposal as gently as she could (despite Angie's protests), and she didn't miss the Doctor's small, relieved sigh as she did so, either (the daft idio).
She still didn't allow herself to breathe a single sigh of relief, though - not until they were all safely back on the TARDIS with the burning remnants of Hedgewick's World securely sealed off behind them. If Rose Tyler never saw another cyberman again for as long as she lived, she knew that it would be too soon.
Still, the children bid her farewell with wide, beaming smiles and told her that they would be eagerly awaiting their next adventure with her professor/boyfriend. Rose waved goodbye to them with promises to return home soon, then promptly proceeded to make the Doctor swear to never allow the children back on board the TARDIS ever again.
"We didn't even find out any new information about Clara," Rose muttered ruefully as she and the Doctor watched the two kids bound up the steps and back into the safe familiarity of their home.
"Sure we did, I learned loads," the Doctor replied with a dismissive shrug. "She's a young, human woman from Earth who likes kids and adventures and baked goods and has a landscaper/nanny for a boyfriend."
"Fat lot of good that does us," Rose grumbled wearily under her breath.
The Doctor simply chuckled as he swept open the TARDIS doors for her, gesturing grandly towards the glowing time rotor in the center of the room. "Personally, I don't really care much about our dear, Miss. Clara. I've got a few other things on my list that are much more important," he whispered conspiratorially as she moved past him into the ship and he flashed her a quick wink. "So why don't we leave her for another day? We'll get it all sorted eventually. It is a time machine, after all."
And Rose knew that it really wouldn't do them any good to run away from the fake life that the Bad Wolf had left for her and to simply ignore the many lingering questions that surrounded her arrival into this world, but the Doctor's soft, inviting smile and deep green eyes told her everything that he didn't dare to speak out loud in that moment - that he couldn't care less about Clara Oswin Oswald, as long as Rose Tyler was at his side once more - and she decided that as long as they had a time machine at their disposal, they might as well put it to good use.