Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. I do not own anything, nor do I get paid for it.

A/N Thank you for the wonderful response on the last chapter. As promised, here is the new chapter exactly a week later.

Also, IrissenNii made a wonderful cover for this story which you can now see. A huge, huge thanks for that amazing gift!

Chapter Thirteen

Rose helped the Doctor down the TARDIS corridor until they came to a pair of blank white double doors with a slight pink tinge to them. The Doctor nodded towards it and the two of them stumbled inside the room that lay beyond the doors.

The Doctor stood upright and let go of Rose as soon as the door closed behind them. "That's better," he said, no trace of fatigue or pain in his voice.

"This is the zero room?" asked Rose, looking at the pink-tinged room that smelled like roses. "It's so calm."

"It cuts off all interference," explained the Doctor. "Even the gravity," he added as he jumped playfully in the air and lay down horizontally in mid air.

Rose smiled despite herself as she walked around the room. "Why's it smell like roses?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, but Rose realised that his lips hadn't moved. "It always has."

"Are you talking right now?" asked Rose.

"Yes," he said and this time, his lips did move. "All interference is cut off and telepathic communication is rather like talking on the phone."

Rose's brow furrowed and she thought Hello and got an amused Hello back from the Doctor. She shook away the playfulness and looked at him seriously. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

He sighed and jumped back down so that he was standing in front of her. "Fine, for now," he said. "Thank you, by the way. For saving me from the Nightmare Child."

Rose laughed embarrassedly. "I barely knew what I was doing," she said.

The Doctor's eyes softened. "You realised that it was pain that fought it off," he said. "You reminded me that I was alive, Rose. Something that I had forgotten myself."

She smiled at him. "I'm sorry I used your guilt against you," she said.

"And I am sorry for making you relive that day," he said, and he surprised them both by taking her hand.

"You saw it?" she asked, tensing a little.

"As much as you did, yes," he nodded and squeezed her hand. "I am so sorry, Rose."

She shook her head. "It's alright," she said. "I know I won't change that future for anything else. It's real, because it hurts."

"Yes," he agreed softly and looked away.

Rose smiled at him. "You are going to be alright, Doctor," she said, conviction seeping into her tone.

He smiled back sadly. "I don't know if I am going to be alright, Rose," he said, words bubbling out of his mouth apparently without his permission. "The only reason why I am so coherent right now is because of the zero room. I am a mess inside, Rose. The things I saw, the people...my mind is all scrambled. I can't focus, I can't think."

"Shh, Doctor, it's okay," said Rose, drawing him into a hug. He hugged her back tightly and she could feel the desperation in his grip. "You're okay."

"I am not, Rose," he said, his voice shaking. "It took away my memories, my sense of time, it messed with the memories of my friends. I can't tell what's real and what it made me think."

"It will come back to you, Doctor," said Rose comfortingly, trying to sound as confident as she could. "You will be alright, Doctor, I promise. You need to rest, your mind needs to rest."

He pulled away reluctantly and nodded slowly, and Rose was surprised to see that he appeared embarrassed at his moment of weakness. She smiled at him reassuringly and patted his cheek. "I'll bring you some tea," she said. "I've heard the superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin is just the thing for healing the synapses."

Braxiatel glanced at his pocket watch, more out of habit than a need for looking at the time. He would give them another five microspans before he went in search of Rose. Romana needed an answer, and only Rose could give it.

He straightened up when Rose emerged into the console room bearing a tray of tea. "Made some tea," she said with a tentative smile. "Thought you'd like a cuppa."

"Yes, thank you," he said, more out of courtesy than anything. "How is he?"

She frowned as she poured him a cup. "Not good," she said. "That thing took away his time sense briefly, and messed with his memories. He isn't feeling very sure of himself right now."

Braxiatel nodded along and took the cup with a smile. "Will he be alright?" he asked carefully.

"Yes, I think so," said Rose and then looked speculatively at Braxiatel. "Are you waiting for an answer from me? About getting the Doctor to join the Time Lords properly?"

Braxiatel did not look embarrassed, just nodded as he sipped his tea. Rose sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.

"I will ask him," she said finally. "But I will not push him to do something that he doesn't want to," she added with a warning look at Braxiatel. "And definitely not before he's had a chance to rest."

"That is fair," conceded Braxiatel. "But do remember that time is precious. The Daleks will not take Davros' loss lightly. There will be retaliation. The sooner we are organised, the sooner we can start fighting back."

"I understand," said Rose with a sigh. "Where have you landed us?"

"Back on Gallifrey," he said and then handed her back the empty cup. "I shall be on my way. Take care of him, Rose."

"I will," she promised. "Thank you, Braxiatel."

He smiled a little. "Thank you, Rose."

"I come bearing tea," announced Rose as she stepped into the zero room.

The Doctor was suspended in mid air, his eyes closed like he was meditating. At her voice, he opened his eyes slowly, and floated to the ground to sit down cross-legged. Rose smiled at him and sat down in front of him with the tea tray between them.

"How do you take it?" she asked.

"With lemon usually," he answered.

Rose nodded and set about making his cup, thankful that she had thought to grab the lemon slices from the fridge in the galley. "Feeling any better?" she asked as she gave him the cup.

He shrugged and sipped his tea. "I know my time sense is back, which is good. I am not yet sure about the other things," he said.

"Braxiatel said goodbye," she said. "He's landed us on Gallifrey."

"How did he come here in the first place?" asked the Doctor.

"I went to the Time Lords," said Rose, sipping her own tea. "For help." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and she shrugged back at him. "You were missing for three days. I had no choice."

"They agreed to help you?" he asked sceptically.

"Yeah," she said.

"What did they want in return?" he asked.

"You," she said simply. "They want you to join them."

"Ah," he said, imitating her tone. "What did you say?"

"I said they think too highly of me if they reckon I can make you change your mind," she said truthfully.

He chuckled a little and refilled his cup of tea. "You underestimate yourself, Rose," he said. "But you needn't worry. I have every intention of joining the Time Lords."

Rose stared at him in shock. "What?" she asked.

His face hardened as he stared into his cup rather than at her. "I promised myself that I would join this war and work towards ending it. I thought I could do it on my own terms. Visiting outposts, dealing with the Dalek Time Controller, tackling the Nightmare Child on my own…" he shook his head. "It hasn't worked. I have put both of our lives in danger, along with the lives of everyone we ever met. No more."

"Doctor?" asked Rose cautiously.

He looked at her earnestly. "I have to join the Time Lords, Rose. I have to be the warrior that they have named me to be. I am the Doctor, former President of the Time Lords of Gallifrey, Keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon, Protector of Gallifrey, Ka Faraq Gatri, the Eighth Man Bound, the Oncoming Storm and Time's Champion. It's time I lived up to those names, however pretentious they might be."

Rose stared at him in silence. "So you join the Time Lords?" she asked finally. "And then what? You fight?"

He nodded. "I fight," he said. "On the frontlines."

"Cardinal."

"Coordinator."

"What news?" asked Narvin.

"I must say you were right again, Narvin," said Braxiatel.

"Oh?" said Narvin smugly. "Do tell."

"Rose Tyler was the key," said Braxiatel.

"A key we can control?" asked Narvin.

"No, I am afraid not," said Braxiatel. "She has her own mind, Narvin, and her loyalty lies with the Doctor."

"And what of the Doctor's loyalty?" asked Narvin.

"That remains to be seen. Perhaps she will be able to convince him to join us," said Braxiatel. "If he does indeed join us…"

"The question remains of what we do with her," nodded Narvin. "What about Arcadia?"

"Too little to do there," said Braxiatel. "She is very capable, Narvin. Do not underestimate her. She can be a powerful warrior, as powerful as the Doctor. It would be wasteful to send her to Arcadia."

Narvin considered that and nodded slowly. "How about Sha-Doctor?" he gasped as the Doctor walked up to them.

"Coordinator, Braxiatel," he greeted them hurriedly. "I believe it is high time we talked, don't you?"

Narvin and Braxiatel stared at him in shock before Narvin recovered quickly. "Of course, this way," he said, exchanging a disconcerted look with Braxiatel.

"Excellent," agreed the Doctor with a wide smile bordering on maniacal.

"Doctor," said Braxiatel cautiously. "Are you sure you are alright?"

The Doctor's wide smile vanished and was replaced with a calm look on his face. "Yes," he answered. "You asked Rose to convince me to join you in this war and I am keeping our end of the bargain. Enough time has been wasted, hasn't it?"

"Yes quite," said Braxiatel, still looking a bit confused.

"In here," said Narvin, leading him to the High Council's chamber. Like Braxiatel, he was a little cautious too, but he was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though that particular phrase would always elude him.

The chamber was empty when they got there and Braxiatel turned to the Doctor. "Would you like me to fetch the President?" he asked, unsure of the Doctor's sudden decision.

"If you like, but I assure you that I am making this decision of my own volition, Braxiatel. I am willing to be subjected to a full medical examination, including my mind, if that would reassure you that there is nothing wrong with me," said the Doctor seriously. "Now, bring me up to speed."

Narvin raised his eyebrows and drew out a key from under the neck of his robes. "Would you step into the Matrix then, Doctor?" he asked.

The Doctor nodded. "I will but before I do, I need to know what happens to Rose," he said, meeting their gaze. "I don't want any harm to come to her."

"We can arrange for her to be sent to a safe zone, but Braxiatel assures me that she is a valuable asset," said Narvin delicately.

"She is," said the Doctor firmly, narrowing his eyes at Narvin.

"We considered Arcadia but it is too well-protected and needs only one watcher," said Braxiatel. "Her abilities would be wasted there."

"Where then?" asked the Doctor.

Braxiatel turned to Narvin who cleared his throat. "Shada."

"Shada? What sort of a name is Shada?"

"You know, I always wondered that," he said, brushing his nose against hers before dipping his head down for a kiss.

Rose pulled away before he could kiss her. "Don't try to distract me," she said. "So, it was a prison?"

"Something like that," he said. "It was used to house prisoners who were a danger to themselves as much as the cosmos."

"And they were locked up? Even though some of them were just ill?" she asked.

He sighed and reclined back on his pillows, running his fingers through her blonde tresses. "They were kept contained, not locked up. Those that were ill, as you say, had damaged their minds with trying to experiment too much with time and had it gone horribly wrong for them."

"That sounds awful," said Rose.

"It was," he said and Rose knew he wouldn't say much more on it.

"Tell me about the fields again," she said, looking at him with beseeching eyes.

He smiled tenderly at her and started to talk about the fields of Gallifrey as he plaited her hair gently. Rose closed her eyes under his ministrations letting his words of red grass and silver trees lull her into a peaceful slumber She was teetering on the edge of sleep when her phone rang, jolting them both out of the haven they had created in their room on the TARDIS.

Rose grabbed the phone blindly and frowned at the display. "Mum? Is everything okay?" she asked as she sat up. She listened to her mother with wide eyes. "Elton, did you say his name? 'Kay, we'll look into it. You just stay in, alright? Yeah, I love you. Bye."

She hung up and turned to the Doctor who sighed and decided to look for his clothes. Rose smiled at him fondly as she pulled on her jeans and hoodie, and decided to keep the plaits while they tracked down this Elton who had been prying into her mum's life.

Rose sat up with a gasp, her sleepy mind still holding onto the remnants of her dream. Not a dream, she realised as she lay back down. It had been a memory. Right before their encounter with the Abzorbaloff. She didn't know why she should remember that now, but she was awake and she knew she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.

Groaning slightly, she got out of her bed and went into the ensuite for a quick shower before getting dressed and going to check on the Doctor. She had retired to her room for a much needed rest after they'd had their tea, and the Doctor had put himself in a healing trance again. The zero room was empty when she got there, and it was with a slightly worried look on her face that she arrived in the console room to find the Doctor sitting on the jumpseat. The ceiling above him showed a vibrant orange and gold nebula and he was staring unseeing at it.

Rose walked up to him slowly, noting with a start that he had changed his clothes. Gone were the slightly steampunk space cowboy-like clothes, replaced by a starched black uniform with bold brass buttons bearing figure eight symbols on them. Rose had seen them on the robes of every Time Lord she had seen on Gallifrey. He was holding a thirty sixth century hair trimmer in his hands, the kind that had about hundreds of different settings and made no mess. He was toying with it absently as he stared up at the view of the nebula.

"I went down to see them," he said quietly, not moving his gaze from the ceiling.

"I figured," said Rose, trying to sound nonchalant. "New clothes?"

He finally looked at her and his lips lifted a little. "Standard military uniform," he said and then showed her the row of seals on his arm. "Rank of the Lord General."

Rose nodded cautiously. "And the hair trimmer?" she asked.

"A bit long, isn't it?" he asked her, tugging at his hair.

"Need help?" she asked, keeping her question as ambiguous as possible.

He seemed to hear the ambiguity in her tone as well, and he smiled as he held out the hair trimmer to her. Rose closed the distance between them and took it from his grip. "You know what I am going to ask," she said, looking down at the hair trimmer as she tried to find the correct setting.

"You can't come with me," he said, with a touch of regret in his voice.

"Says the Time Lords?" she asked. "Or you?"

"Me," he answered. "Even with your unique biology, you would not survive where I am going. Only Time Lords can venture there."

"And where's that?" asked Rose, moving to stand behind him and combing her fingers through his hair to see how long it was.

He closed his eyes at her touch, not that she could see it. "An unstable time rift," he answered. "There's said to be a very powerful Dalek base in the vicinity and I will be leading a battalion into the destructive rift to influence the temporal shift and hopefully put an end to a substantial number of Daleks."

"Sounds dangerous," said Rose, worry slipping into her nonchalant tone.

"It is," he said, as he heard the buzz of the trimmer behind him. "Temporal warfare at its most destructive."

Rose focused on shearing the long curls into shorter, military appropriate haircut, though she couldn't bring herself to get rid of his hair completely. "You'll be careful, won't you?" she said, her words sounding more like a statement than a question.

"I shall do my best," he said and then rummaged in his pockets. "For you," he said and handed her a scroll tied with a red ribbon.

Rose turned the trimmer off and took the scroll. The Doctor ran his hands through his shorter hair, murmuring his approval while Rose untied the ribbon and unfurled the scroll. Her eyebrows shot up. "Shada?" she asked. "The prison?"

He only looked a little surprised that she knew what it was. "They need someone with your expertise," he said.

Rose snorted as she looked at him. "What exactly is my expertise?" she asked, derision evident in her voice. "Last I heard, it involved running headfirst into potentially fatal situations."

"Braxiatel was confident that you would be invaluable there," said the Doctor, choosing to ignore the painful way his stomach clenched at her words.

"Invaluable, or just out of the way?" asked Rose shrewdly.

"Rose," sighed the Doctor.

"Fine," she said, tucking the scroll into her coat pocket. "Just tell me one thing. Would you have still agreed to join the Time Lords if we hadn't ever encountered the Nightmare Child?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," said the Doctor, raising his eyebrows.

"It does, though," said Rose. "You have to be sure that this is what you want, Doctor. Not as an influence of something you went through."

His jaw tightened. "You don't think I'm strong enough to recover?" he asked. "They gave me a full medical exam, including my mind, and I have been declared fit for duty, so to speak."

"I never said you weren't strong enough," said Rose plainly. "I know you will recover, and I appreciate knowing that you have a clean bill of health and all. But I need to know you are okay. I can't leave knowing that the trauma of what you went through is still affecting you."

"What I went through," he snapped. "Is something that will always affect me, Rose. I don't plan to put my entire life on hold because of it."

Rose could feel her patience wearing thin. "I am not asking you to put your life on hold," she said, doing her best to sound calm. "I know there's a war going on and you have a plethora of titles to live up to and all that. I just want to know that you are alright. Because you and I both know that the Time Lords have made no secret of the fact that they want you on their side."

"It is my side too," he said coolly.

"Someone has to look out for you," Rose went on as if he hadn't spoken. "'Cos God help me, I'll be damned if you put everything else before your own recovery from a traumatic experience. You can't fight this war if you are unsure about your own mind and you were too stubborn to make sure you were alright. I won't lose you like that again."

She was panting by the time she finished, and the Doctor was staring at her with wide eyes. Rose flushed red, and crossed her arms in front of her as if the action would take back the words that she had definitely meant, yet hadn't wanted to say out loud.

The silence in the console room was getting unbearable, but then the Doctor stood up slowly and walked up to her. Rose met his gaze reluctantly and was surprised to see the tender look in his eyes that she hadn't quite seen on this face of his before. Her blush deepened at the look, and she went to move away but the Doctor stopped her by cupping her cheek gently.

"Thank you," he murmured, and pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth. "For caring about me."

Rose closed her eyes and nodded, before taking a step away from him. It was too much, and too soon. His touch had felt far too familiar, and while everything in her heart and brain knew that he was the same man that she had always loved, the time was all wrong. She pushed back her desire to move back into his embrace and opened her eyes. "We should be leaving, shouldn't we?" she asked. "Lord General," she added pointedly.

He looked a little flushed himself as he nodded. "As you were, Lady Commander," he said.

Rose's lips quirked up at the new title that she had been given by the Time Lords on that scroll of paper. "You'll be taking the TARDIS?" she asked.

He nodded and turned to the console. "I will be getting rid of non-essential rooms. I'll keep your room, but you ought to pack the things that you wish to take with you."

Rose nodded her head and went towards her room. Despite every instinct in her wanting to crawl up into a ball and weep for a few days, she picked up a pack that was bigger on the inside. She put in a few clothes in it, along with her toiletries and little else. She zipped up the pack and swung it over her shoulder as she went back towards the console room.

The TARDIS materialisation sound could be heard by the time she got to the console room, and Rose knew that they were due to arrive. Presumably on Shada.

The Doctor looked up from the console and smiled tentatively at her. "Shada," he said.

Rose nodded as the TARDIS landed with a thud. She walked to the doors before turning back to the Doctor, whose smile softened.

"I will be alright, Rose," he promised, walking up to her. "I have a war to lead, and I promise you, I have every intention of surviving it and most importantly, having the universe survive it."

Rose nodded again, not entirely convinced but not as anxious either. "See you then, Doctor," she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering.

The Doctor tried to smile but ended up pulling her into a hug much like the one they had shared a few hours ago in the zero room. Rose held on to him just as tightly as he seemed to be doing, willing herself not to cry. Her pack slipped from her shoulder and hit the floor but neither of them broke the hug for several long moments. Finally, one of them stirred a little though they couldn't be certain which one of them it had been, and the embrace was broken.

Rose avoided his gaze as she bent down to pick up her pack. "Any idea what I'm going to expect out there?" she asked, trying to sound playful.

"None whatsoever," he said, his tone sounding much the same. "Be careful, Rose," he added sincerely.

Rose met his gaze briefly and smiled gently. "Goodbye, Doctor," she said and opened the doors.

"Goodbye, Rose," said the Doctor, and Rose didn't turn around as the doors slammed shut behind her.

A/N End of the chapter. Thanks for reading.

The new chapter will be up next Saturday. Let me know what you thought of this one.