In the silent console room, the Doctor and the Emissary sat alone, Rose and Adam having gone to bed hours ago.

The Doctor had yet to say a word to his old friend when she finally stood from the captain's chair and headed out of the room.

She heard a thunk as she reached the hallway. Stopping in her tracks, she turns around, a smile ghosting her face.

"Did you just hit your head?"

He didn't respond, but gave her a look as he rubbed his head. The Emissary shook her head and started back down the hall.

"Wait!" he called. She turned to face him again. "At the end there, we were so busy... I never thanked you."

The Emissary paused, looking at him curiously, then walked back towards her chair.

"Thanked me for what?"

He looked away, fiddling with the control panel.

"For protecting Rose. Getting her under the bulk head even though you knew you probably wouldn't make it." He met her eyes. "It meant a lot."

The Emissary smiled.

"You don't need to thank me for that," she said before smirking. "Jackie'd've had my head if she'd got hurt."

He grinned. "That woman has a mean right hook." Abruptly, his smile faded. "But still. Thanks."

He turned away, decidedly done with the conversation. The Emissary sat for a moment, then a thought occurred to her.

"Doctor?" She waited for his affirmative hum. "Why did you open the bulkhead again?"

There was no answer for a long moment.

"What do you mean?"

Slowly, the Emissary got up from her seat and walked around the console. She sat down on the grating above his head, causing him to look up.

"The Dalek was trapped, but you let it out again," she said. "I could understand if it was Rose, but she was already safe. Everyone else down there was dead. So why?"

"You were still down there," he answered like it was obvious.

"But you-" she cut off and looked away.

He glanced up curiously. "I what?"

"You hate me."

He seemed genuinely surprised. "What gave you that idea? I asked you to come with us."

The Emissary narrowed her eyes.

"The last time I had a full conversation with you, before you brought Rose home that day, was the night you found out what I was doing as a Sentry, and that was an argument."

He stared back at her, but said nothing. She sighed.

"Why did you ask me to come?"

"You're the only other Time Lord left," he said, breaking eye contact. "I want you around."

Suddenly, her mask slipped and for the first time since before Downing Street, she was furious.

"Why?" she scoffed. "You never did before."

He looked up, startled at the sudden switch in tone, before his eyes narrowed into a glare.

"You're the only other Time Lord alive, Emissary," he snapped back. "Of course I want to keep an eye on you!"

"Keep an eye on me?!" Her voice was sharp. "What in Rassilon's name is that supposed to mean?"

"You know exactly what that means," he said, voice on the edge of shouting. "I heard about how the Council forced you to regenerate after your second regeneration went off the rails! Of course I'm not just going to let you go about the Earth unsupervised. You're a walking flight risk!"

She gasped at his words.

"I was forced to regenerate because the Council decided my methods of preserving the timeline were too violent, yes," the Emissary allowed. "I was the perfect soldier that they made me. We all walked a fine line between heros and monsters back then, and I wasn't the only one to cross it." She pinned him with a vicious glare. "Keeping an eye on me," she scoffed. "That's rich coming from you! There was an entire Sentry unit dedicated to cleaning up your messes."

"Cleaning up my messes?" he asked, sounding indignant. "What messes?

"Oh please, like you don't know," she snapped. "I was on Gallifrey during your trial, Doctor!" Actually, she'd been at the trial, but if he didn't remember that then she wasn't going to be the one to bring that up. One thing at a time.

"That trial was—," he cut off abruptly, frowning at her. "Wait, I thought you didn't stay on Gallifrey as a Sentry."

"After my forced regeneration, I chose to stay on planet for awhile," she responded quietly. "I left after a few years, but I didn't go back into enforcement."

"Oh," he said, clearly caught off guard. "I guess I didn't realize."

She laughed bitterly.

"How could you?" She began to pace around the console. "After that one mission, you never spoke to me again!" She paused, pointing at him angrily. "You were so bloody furious over the Ahtohallans, but you did the exact same thing! Except yours was worse!"

He opened his mouth but she cut him off, eyes blazing.

"How dare you stand there and call me a flight risk, over something that happened 600 years ago, when you burned our entire planet?!"

The reminder of the War seemed to take the fight out of him, and abruptly, the Emissary realized that while it had happened over a year ago for her, it'd been a much shorter span of time for him.

"Yeah," he said, his voice still angry. "I messed up, but so did you!" He set his sonic down hard and met her eyes. "I'm not taking you back to Earth, that's final!"

The Emissary blinked, and nearly laughed aloud. "Rassilon, no, I don't want to go back!"

"Wha-"

"You really think you could've forced me on board?" she asked. "Earth is boring."

"You didn't seem all that bored when Rose and I showed up," he pointed out.

"I thought I was stuck there," she said bluntly. "But you're alive and I was given the option of leaving." She shrugged. "I took it."

"Must not hate me too much then," he snarked.

"Can't really say I ever did," she shot back. "We were best friends, Doctor, you're the one who ended that!" He didn't answer. She sighed. "It was nice, though, when we were stuck in Downing Street."

He looked up sharply. "The entire earth was about to be destroyed," he reminded her.

"I know, but we were so preoccupied with saving the world, and for a while…" she shrugged, trailing off. "We were so busy that it was just like the Academy, just the next crazy adventure you dragged me on."

He made an indignant sound. "I did no such thing!"

The Emissary crossed her arms, smirking. "Ninety percent of the trouble I got in was directly related to you."

"Name one time!"

"When you blew up my dorm room," she deadpanned. "You couldn't even do your weird science in your own room, oh no, because you'd been banned!"

She watched as the Doctor started to laugh. "I remember that!" he cried. "You were so mad at me and you still covered for me!"

"We were best friends," she laughed. "Rassilon knows you drove me nuts sometimes, but I would always cover for you."

The console room got quiet again. For awhile, the Emissary just sat and watched the Doctor work. Finally, she stood and began to make her way out.

As she reached the hallway, she paused and turned back. "Ok," she said. The Doctor looked up at her. "It's been centuries, and neither one of us fully trusts the other. I get it." She sighed, offering him a smile. "But we can be civil, yeah? Rose deserves better than us bickering. I'm not saying that we have to be best friends again, but we can be civil?"

He nodded. "Civil. Yeah, we can do that."

Smiling, the Emissary headed off to bed, leaving the Doctor standing over the console, staring at nothing.