A/N: Not sure about this one... oh well. We'll just say there's room for improvement.

3050 hits! I'm utterly amazed.

Despite its hundreds of rooms, the TARDIS made its discomfort with so many passengers known by plunging them all down to Cardiff for a recharge and refusing to leave until Donna and Martha decided to budge off for a visit home with their families. In the meantime, Tardis dragged the Doctor off to her favourite Cardiff tea house to go over the mechanics of the next while. When Martha and Donna arrived back and heard the bit about the possibility of years, they got a little tiffy.

"Blunderin' about the galaxy…"

"Universe," Tardis corrected.

"Universe, lookin' for these holes…"

"Ripples."

"Ripples in this Void…"

"Time and space, actually. The Void doesn't actually exist in universes…"

"You bloody well better shut your gob a'fore I shut it for ya," Donna threatened finally.

Tardis made a bit of a show out of pressing her lips together, though it was more to hide her grin than to shut up.

"And you," Donna shouted, turning to jab a finger at the Doctor, who immediately threw up his hands in protest.

"Oi, don't go off in a strop," Martha interjected, and Tardis started giggling.

Donna rounded on her, but Tardis mimicked the Doctor and threw up her hands in her defense. "Look," she said quickly, "that's what it's gonna take to get Rose back to the Doctor. And if I know the Doctor like I think I do (and I do, because John practically is him, and I know John), then nothing's going to stop him from doing whatever it takes. Provided, of course," she shot a glance over at the Time Lord in question, "that it doesn't cause both universes to collapse."

The Doctor was watching her quietly with that pensive look that Tardis knew so well on John, and when he finally did speak, his voice reflected the exhaustion of nine hundred years of pain. "What was the last thing I said to her?" he asked. Prove it, was his silent challenge.

Even despite the solemn situation, Tardis's mouth twitched with her most joyful grin, as it often did when she spoke of Rose. "You said her name," she told him. "But you didn't finish what you meant." The Doctor's mouth curled upward as they shared a knowing look.

"She knew," the Doctor said, pride buoying his words.

"She knew," Tardis acknowledged.

Before they knew it, the TARDIS had announced itself ready to go, and Donna and Martha had decided to stay behind. They made their polite excuses and were friendly despite it all, but when it finally came down to it, as Donna said, "this is a search for a woman we don't know that could take fifty-seven years, for all we've heard. So you go and find Rose, and when you do, you come back and find us. I wanna meet the woman who captured the Doctor's heart."

"Hearts," Tardis corrected.

Donna narrowly avoided a huff. "Hearts, then."

Tardis grinned happily.

"Oh, and besides," Donna said, nodding at Tardis, "I just don't like you. No offense."

Tardis smirked like she'd seen John do. "That's all right. I'm sort of an acquired taste, 'specially to the terrestrial sort."

"Oi, I like ya just fine!" Martha exclaimed.

"Yeah," Tardis said. "But you're abnormally cool. Personally, I think Rose'll like you"

Before Martha could reply, the Doctor shouted, "GROUP HUG!" and proceeded to mash them all close together, and there really wasn't one that wasn't pleased.