All too soon the Doctor pulled back, Rose moaning in protest until she saw the look of amusement on his face.

"What's so funny?"

"Sorry, couldn't help myself." He grinned. "Kitchen table."

"Just how much poking around did you do in there?" Rose demanded, her face growing redder every second. The fact that she'd come up with that particular idea the day after she'd met the Doctor didn't really help. Probably why he was grinning so much. Smug git.

"Enough to get some very interesting ideas of my own." Rose's mouth dropped. The Doctor just kept grinning like an idiot, raising an eyebrow. Okay, she thought, smug filthy git.

His face grew serious. "Listen, Rose, don't be scared, okay? I've got to do something."

"What?" She really didn't like the sound of that, at all. He obviously knew it, because he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and smiled reassuringly.

"An hour, at the most," he said, still smiling. "If not, kick me. Hard as you can." Rose watched with horror as he fell forward, unconscious, into her lap. She gasped, screamed, stared, and screamed again before deciding it would probably be best to move him before he suffocated.

-

It was a struggle, but eventually she managed to get the Doctor onto a med bay bed. The journey had been mercifully short, and Rose suspected the TARDIS had a hand in it.

Rose set him down carefully onto the bed, wondering briefly if she should fix him to it somehow, after what had happened to her. Deciding against it, she arranged herself on the floor beside him, with her head resting on her knees and an arm outstretched to grasp his hand.

"Don't you dare go disappearing on me again…" she whispered to the silence. She was grateful for the resumed humming of the TARDIS in the background. Somehow she didn't seem quite as alone and scared as she had in the 'star room' as she now called it.

He'll be okay, Rose. It's just a side effect.

"How do I know that? He's already done it once. My fault…and now I don't know if I've killed him again."

You haven't. You didn't, for that matter. Besides, there's nowhere near the amount of power there that there was before.

"Is he going to remember me when he wakes up? I still don't remember half of what happened to me, so will he?"

There was no answer, just the soft humming in the background, and the Doctor's breathing. Rose sighed. She was just overreacting, she told herself, just acting like a scared little girl. The thought made her feel rather stupid.

Stupid ape, she told herself, smiling.

Then another thought occurred to her; could the Doctor hear her, even though he was unconscious? Rose decided that maybe he could; maybe now she could do something she'd wanted to do for what seemed like forever – talk to him. Not just chat, but really talk, without the random interruptions that this version seemed so fond of making, especially when she was about to work up the courage to say something important.

"Doctor?" she began, licking her lips nervously. "I don't know if you can hear me in there. I hope not. I'm about to make a right prat of myself."