Rose drifted slowly into wakefulness. The cottage was brightening up from the sunlight through the cracks and shutters, the chill was receding, and the murmur and rustle of village life crept in from outside. Again, she was alone in bed, but she smiled recalling the Doctor heaving sighs of what she'd sworn were happiness as they'd drifted off to sleep. Probably gone to round up breakfast, she figured, and shoved aside the covers.

She repeated the previous day's chore of washing out her dirty clothes, then she shook out the worst of the wrinkles in her newly-dry set and donned them, wincing at the lack of fabric softener as her jeans practically crackled. She made a halfhearted attempt at doing something with her atrocious bed-head, then gave up and knelt by the side of the pool, dunking her hair to re-wet it. Wrapping a towel around her head, she went through to the main cottage to lay out her washing and find her trainers.

"Oh, Roooooose! Wakey-wakey!" A familiar voice floated in from the main road, and she opened a set of the front shutters in time to see the Doctor step onto the porch, hefting the ubiquitous meal basket. She opened the door just as his hand reached for the handle, and grinned as his eyes widened at her makeshift turban.

"Salaam, my lady…" he said with tremendous self-control, but Rose's tongue poked out to the side of her smile and broke his straight face into an answering smirk. "I love what you've done with your hair."

"Cheeky. " Rose unwrapped the towel and hung it on the coatrack by the door. She neatly hooked the basket from his hand and spun around inside, heading for the table. She removed the bread, butter, and preserves, and they sat down. "Hmm, this might not be as good as the TARDIS waffle maker, but it's hard to beat front-door delivery." Mouth full of breakfast, the Doctor could only nod sagely and continue chewing.

When the Doctor's feeding frenzy had died down, Rose broached the question of the morning. "So, we still gonna go looking at this lizard? After lunch, right?"

"If you're up for a long walk. Ellaran says that we'll ride for the first half-day, but after that the terrain dips down into the lowlands, and it's not safe for the riding animals. So we'll leave them there at the border, so to speak, with Ellaran – that's what he does, tending them – and go into the lowlands on foot to try to find the agrantha. Apparently it's another few hours' hike to where we'd likely find them. So the plan is to leave midday today, camp at the edge for tonight, then set off on foot first thing, so we can be back at camp before nightfall, camp again, get back midday the next day. Two-day adventure."

"Huh. So how many crazies are there, then? The ones who're going to actually climb up on the thing? Or is this just a sightseeing tour?" Rose idly smeared the last crust of her bread with the pink stonefruit preserves.

"Well…erm, I'd rather thought I would. Nimble we are, Time Lords, hard to throw and all that. Did I ever tell you about the time I got accidentally entered into a rodeo?..."

"Are you serious? You want us to go out with these people and stomp through the bleedin' forest hunting for a gigantic dangerous lizard thing – "

"Not a lizard, more like a dinosaur. Just to give you an accurate picture, you know. Well, actually, I suppose that's not really –"

"WhatEVER. – just so you can climb up on it and touch its whatzit – "

"Ooh now, Miss Tyler!"

"GOD! You are twelve with nine hundred years' experience, I swear. – anyway, so you can try to do some weird mind-meld with it FOR FUN in the seven seconds before it knocks you off its head and squashes you on the rocks and I get stranded here on Retro Caveman Prime – "

"Umcirillax, actually. And there's no other planet in the system, so it couldn't be called Prime anyway…"

"Aaaaaugh!" And, with that, the morning's first conversation came to a screeching halt as one very irate Rose snatched her trainers up, flipped her damp hair out of her face, and stomped out of the cottage in her stocking feet before she gave in to her impulse to club one very loquacious and thrill-seeking Time Lord over the head and drag his skinny arse over the hills and back to the TARDIS.

What the hell was he thinking? Rose fumed. She perched on a beautifully-carved bench in the village center, brushed dirt and bark off her socks, donned her shoes, then fumbled in her pocket for a hair clip. Leave it to him to get caught up in their mumbo-jumbo and want to go do something that's bloody likely to get him killed.

The Doctor bit his lip and watched Rose storm out to the bench. He'd figured she wouldn't be too happy about him giving it a try, but she was actually angry. He vacillated for a moment, deciding whether it would be best to wait it out and let her cool off, or go after her. Finally he set his jaw, straightened his suit jacket, and headed toward the bench where his none-too-happy companion sat trying to pin up her hair. He could tell by the set of her shoulders and her jerky motions that she was getting more and more frustrated by the second as she tried, and failed, to neatly arrange her hair.

Coming up behind her, he laid his hands on her shoulders. "You're upset. I'm sorry." She heaved an enormous breath of…frustration? Anger? Resignation?...and her hands dropped to her lap. He slowly began to rub his thumbs in circles around her neck and shoulders; he could feel the tension radiating off of her. "Talk to me?"

Rose's eyes were tearing up. "You could get killed! It's not worth it!" She was determined not to cry, was determined to stay mad until this was resolved, but the warm presence against her back and the gentle massage were making it hard for her to maintain much of a head of steam. "I…don't want you hurt. This isn't saving anybody…just not that important…" She slumped down, leaning back into his touch, and said nothing more as he continued to work out the sudden tightness in her shoulders.

For a few more moments, neither spoke, and both focused on his hands. After the Doctor sensed that she was a bit calmer and less tense, he lightly squeezed her shoulders and then neatly twisted her hair up under itself as he'd done the evening before. He came around to sit beside her.

"Thanks." Her voice was quiet, almost toneless.

"Anytime." He tried to think of the best response to her anger, then decided that the truth was probably the best bet. "Rose, we do dangerous things all the time."

"It's different. You might get hurt, really hurt, and I won't be able to help, and it'll all be for nothing. Not saving lives, or fighting a bad guy, or anything."

The Doctor sighed. "Rose, you know I'll be careful. Believe me, I have no intention of stranding you here. But this is such a fantastic chance! Do you know how rare this is? How unusual to find animal species that can connect psychically, even to a limited extent, with an intelligent species? I might be able to learn a lot more from even a short amount of contact than these people. And we'll have them right there to help. They've done this for generations, Rose."

Rose shut her eyes tightly. He was right, she admitted miserably to herself, and he probably would emerge unscathed and smelling like a rose. Ha ha. And she'd never been able to resist that pleading, boyish look of excitement when he was faced with a mystery, or a challenge, or anything new.

"Fine. Just…fine." She couldn't say anything else.

"Rose." He turned her gently to face him. "You're worried about me. That means the world. I promise, I won't do anything stupid. I do know what it's like to be worried about you, you know." He fondly stroked her cheek with one thumb, tracing through the fine line of dampness where a tear had snuck out. "But this is what we do, eh? Different adventure. And better with two." His eyebrows raised, and she couldn't help but return his smile. "That's my girl!" He slipped an arm around her and together they walked back up to the stone cottage to gather their things.

By the time they'd made it in, Rose had composed herself, and as soon as the door closed behind them, she grabbed the Doctor in a tight hug, which he promptly returned, wrapping her up in those impossibly long arms. "I'm sorry. I was too worried to think. I know you're not going to be stupid. You'd better not, or I'll kill you myself." She could feel his laughter shaking his frame as he rested his chin on top of her head and squeezed her tightly.

"Deal."