WELL, THIS MIGHT NOT PLEASE THE 10/ROSE CAMP TOO MUCH, BUT I DO BELIEVE IT'S HANDLED WELL. MY BIGGEST CONCERN IS THIS: IS IT CONVINCING? DO WE REALLY THINK THE TWO OF THEM COULD COME TO A DECISION THIS WAY, GIVEN ALL PAST EVIDENCE?

WREAKING HAVOC

The Doctor and Rose did not need to force their way into the main control room. The door was ajar and ready for the return of its rightful pilots.

"Okay, I'm looking for a com device," she said, beginning to cast her eyes about the green-lit room.

The Doctor did the same, in search of a way to undo the explosives in the building. Anything with a countdown or a friction pump, wicked obvious trinkets, since the Judoon were not the savviest of creatures.

As she searched, she watched the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. Should she say it? Should she even try? Finally, she just closed her eyes, and said, "Doctor?"

"Mmm?" he said, pulling levers, examining labels, opening panels.

"What did you do to that girl?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Martha, who do you think?"

He stood up straight and looked at her. "How d'you mean?"

"My reputation precedes me?"

"Well... you know..." he said, fidgeting uncomfortably.

"Rose Tyler is a touchy subject?"

He looked at her with sad eyes and sighed.

"Doctor," she asked very carefully. "Do you even know what you did to her?"

"I've been slowly realising, ever since she left me."

"And why did she leave?" Rose asked, already knowing the answer. "Did you make her travel with you for two years and spend the whole time pining for me?"

The look in his eyes was answer enough. There was sadness and loneliness... and guilt.

He sighed heavily. "The day she left, she told me about a friend of hers who fancied a flat-mate, but the flat-mate never looked at her twice. He was fond of her, but he'd never return her affection. Martha told her to get out, save herself... I guess it took her two years to follow her own advice."

"Oh, God. You had to have known she loved you," Rose said. "I mean, I could tell and I've just met her."

"On some level, I knew," he confessed. "But I haven't allowed myself to acknowledge it until now."

"You know, if you weren't ready to travel with someone new, you shouldn't have done it. Your companion needs your full attention. You don't just pick up someone new, and be all charming and cute and then never look at her again. That had to have been torture for her, Doctor."

He grew defensive. "Rose, after I lost you... for about three seconds I wanted to die. I honestly wanted to just park the TARDIS at the edge of the universe and die. But then three seconds passed, literally, and life had to go on. This woman named Donna just appeared out of nowhere in the TARDIS, and I had to hit the ground running again. It's a very long story... just suffice it to say, she showed me that I needed someone at my side, or else I become..." he drifted backwards and sat down on some sort of railing. "Oh Rose, what I could become if I traveled alone with my grief."

"Then pick up a bloke," she said. "One that likes girls. Go from planet to planet watching alien sport and ogling the ladies. Don't you know how to deal with rebound? Blimey!"

The Doctor smiled. "That never occurred to me. That would have been smart."

"Of course it would have. But now you've got some damage-control to do with Martha, don't you think?"

Defensive again. "Oi! While we're on the subject, let's talk about you and Mister Mickey," he said, standing up straight and pointing a finger at Rose.

Rose looked at him, astonished.

"That's right," the Doctor said. "You want to read me the riot act over pining? What about this man who's been with you since before we met? And stuck with you through the drama..."

"It's not the same."

"Isn't it?" he asked. "Your birthday's just passed, hasn't it? Twenty-two?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Did you and Mickey do something special?"

"Yes, we went out to a nice dinner, and he gave me a gift."

"Where did he take you?"

There was a pause, while Rose thought. Then she realised, "I don't remember."

"You don't remember? Wasn't this just two days ago?"

"Yes, hold on! I'll think of it!" She thought again, and then said, "It was an Italian place, I know that."

"What did you wear?" he asked.

"I don't know," she confessed.

"What did you eat?"

Silence.

"What did he give you as a gift?"

She looked at him, her eyes wide. As he asked questions, she'd been growing more and more appalled at herself. Mickey had clearly made an effort to plan her birthday, take her to an expensive restaurant, buy her a gift she'd actually like, and here it was two days later, and she couldn't remember anything.

"Now let me ask you this: When you were sitting at dinner, what were you thinking about?"

"I was thinking of the Aurora Borealis on Temple Planet Hazoron."

"That's where I took you the year before."

"Oh God," she sighed. Now it was her turn to sit down on the railing. She looked at the Doctor, again with wide eyes. "This is a disaster."

"Yep, it is," he agreed. "And it's taken us raking each other over the coals to see it."

"I can't believe Mickey's still with me," she said. "Not just my birthday, but the entire year before that. I'd cry, and he'd try to comfort me and I always swatted him away like he was a fly. And that's not even mentioning the two years before when I was with you, and he was at home, wondering if I'd ever come back..."

"Oh, poor Martha," the Doctor groaned. He stared off into space, and said, "Our first trip out together, we stayed in this old inn, and we had to share a bed. As we lay there, we were looking at each other, and now I think of it, she had this wistful look on her face, like she'd just caught a butterfly in her hand. And then I told her that you would know how to solve the problem and that I'd take her home the next day."

"And she turned over violently so she wouldn't have to face you," Rose said.

"Yes, how'd you know?"

"It's what I would have done."

Silence hung in the air, and then Rose spoke again. "One time, Mickey brought home flowers for me, and I thanked him. But as I put them in water, I told him that you'd once given me a Periwinkle Orchid that emitted light and sang."

"I drew sketches of you in a diary and left them around for Martha to see," he told her. "Of course, I wasn't in my right mind at the time, but it didn't seem to do her any good."

"I went with Mickey to buy a suit when he was interviewing at Torchwood," she said. "And I kept making him try on brown pinstripes. He did it with this totally destroyed look on his face, and I had no idea I was doing it. He wound up buying grey tweed. Can you see Mickey in grey tweed?"

"I kissed Martha, and then later claimed it was a genetic transfer."

"I said your name in bed."

The Doctor seemed to choke, and then he said, "Okay, you win." They laughed almost bitterly together.

Then his eyes focused on something across the room. "I wonder..." he mused. He crossed to it, and opened the panel. "A-ha!" he shouted.

"What?"

"I've found the detonator! Molto bene, with a friction pump, just like I thought! You see? The Judoon are thick."

"Good," she said. "Can you undo it?"

"Just need a minute," he said, extracting the sonic screwdriver and going to work.

On the panel behind Rose, a light flashed that hadn't been flashing before. It looked suspiciously like a communications device. She pressed the button next to the light.

"Hello?" she said.

"Ha-ha," Mickey's voice crackled. "Beat you to it. Who's the man?"

"You are, you're the man," she laughed. "Where are you two?"

"We found this great big room with something that looks like a recording studio mixing board," he answered.

"Mickey!" the Doctor cried, stumbling across the room to the com device. "That's the H2O scoop activator. You haven't touched anything have you?"

"No, you said the coordinates were probably already set," Mickey said. "First thing we did was call you."

"Good," the Doctor told him. "You two, wait for our signal, and then you can send us back to Earth."

"Ten-four," Mickey said, and the connection clicked off.

The Doctor went back inside the panel, and Rose heard the sonic screwdriver whirring once more.

"Doctor, what do we do?" she asked.

"I disarm the explosives and Mickey and Martha send us back to Earth," he said. "What part of that weren't you clear on?"

"No, Doctor," she sighed. "I mean about us?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want me to travel with you again?"

He turned and faced her. She looked lovely in the dim green light. Her perfect blonde hair reflected the colour as if through a photo filter. "I do," he told her, expressionlessly.

"And I'd like that too," she said, equally without expression. "But we have this problem. Our... friendship, our relationship, our being together or whatever you want to call it... it wreaks havoc."

"Agreed."

"The way I see it, you and I could just strike out across the stars together and pretend like we haven't just annihilated the very people who love us," she said. "Or, we could actually do the right thing."

"Quite right," he whispered.

She crossed to him and pressed her palms to his lapels. "Doctor, we spent two years together constantly trying to do the right thing. We were brave, we made sacrifices, we fixed things, we almost died... how many times? And now, we ourselves have caused the problem. You and I have created the dilemma that needs fixing. Now, more than ever, I think we need to follow in our own footsteps and do the right thing."

"Agreed," he said, swallowing hard. "They've been there for us. It's time we stopped being selfish."

She sighed and lay her head against his chest, and he put his arms around her rather loosely. He could tell without seeing her face that she was crying.

"It's a pity," she said, her voice breaking. "I really would have liked to grow old with you."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Time was, I thought you would."

She looked up at him, her eyes were liquid with sadness. "I love you. But I think our time has passed."

"I love you too," he said to her, and at that, her tears came like little waterfalls. "But I'm afraid you're right."

And now nothing was left to say. The Doctor and Rose worked together to abate the explosions, while Martha and Mickey prepared to bring them home.