AN: Sorry about the slight delay on this one. Midnight is tricky to write with a telepathic bond, and I wanted to make sure I got it right. Plus, I really wanted to foreshadow some things at the end. Chapters 32 and 33 pretty much ready to go with minor edits, so we should be back to Tuesday updates next week.

Chapter Thirty-one: What Hurts One…

Halfway back to the TARDIS, Rose could once again feel the telepathic presence she'd noticed earlier. That's weird… Her step faltered for a moment as it slid against her mind, then she understood what was happening and she started running.

It was testing the Doctor's barriers, trying to get into his mind.

And it was picking up his words, echoing them through the mouth of another passenger.

Jenny and Donna hollered at her as they chased after her, but Rose ignored them. Instead, she hurled a frantic warning at the Doctor over the bond, unable to calm down until she knew he understood the danger he was in.

What is it, Rose?

A hint of a headache echoed over the bond, and Rose winced when she realised how loudly she'd yelled at him. Sorry. I didn't mean… She wheeled around a corner, hoping to see the TARDIS, and cursed softly when she realised they were still five minutes away from the TARDIS, even at a run.

I know you didn't, love, he assured her. Now calm down, and tell me what's wrong.

She didn't slow down, but she did manage to take a deep breath. Be careful talking to Mrs. Silvestry, she implored when she felt like she could talk over the bond without giving him a headache.

The Doctor focused back on the conversation swirling around the bus, and Rose shivered as Sky continued to echo every single sentence she heard. Comprehension dawned in the Doctor's mind, and Rose wanted to cry, she was so relieved.

Exactly, she said. There's something… I felt another telepath on the planet before, while we were sunbathing. And I felt it again when the pounding on the bus started. She could feel the Doctor's acknowledgement and thanks, and then he turned his attention back to the passengers, and she kept running.

Donna and Jenny drew up alongside her. "What… is going on?" Donna panted.

"Figured out what I was afraid of happening," Rose said shortly. "TARDIS, then explain."

Rose drew a sigh of relief when she whipped around another corner and finally spotted the TARDIS, parked right where they'd left her. The door flew open before she could retrieve her key, and she breathed a word of thanks to the ship as she ran straight to the console.

Help me find him? she implored as ran her hands over the controls. The lights flashed in response.

Jenny and Donna were only a few steps behind her and shut the door once they were on board. Rose spared them a glance as she let the TARDIS guide her in setting the coordinates.

"There's another telepath on Midnight somewhere," she began. "I felt it earlier, when we were sunbathing." Her hand landed on a dial and she twisted it until she felt the nudge to move on to the next control.

Jenny sucked in a breath. "I think I might have felt it, too. I just thought… it felt kind of like how you feel if you haven't gotten enough sleep, a fuzzy feeling in my head."

Rose paused and looked at her daughter. "I think what worries me the most is how skilled this telepath is at masking their presence from other telepaths. I only caught a hint of its existence by lucky chance, I think, and as soon as it realised it had been detected, it shut me out. You must have picked up on the same thing."

She shook her head quickly and shifted down to the next panel and control. "But that's not all. This thing, whatever it is, has taken over one of the passengers."

Donna crossed her arms over her chest and sat on the edge of the jump seat. "What do you mean, it's taken over a passenger?"

Rose ground her teeth together as she adjusted the sliding control that would lock onto the Doctor's current temporal coordinates. The pressure on their telepathic barriers was getting worse, and for the first time, she worried that their combined barriers would not be enough to avoid an attack.

"Exactly what it sounds like, Donna," Rose snapped. She pressed her lips together and took a breath. "Sorry. This is just… it feels so wrong." She clenched and unclenched her fingers, trying to calm down. "Ever since the bus stopped, this woman has been… she's been copying everyone, the way you would when you were a kid and you wanted to annoy the other kids on the playground?"

Donna nodded. "Bit creepy," she admitted. "Especially if she hasn't said anything that isn't copying."

"Exactly," Rose agreed. "And I don't think it's going to stop there."

The TARDIS stopped humming in Rose's mind, and she stepped back to study the coordinates. As she did, she tuned in to her awareness of the Doctor's location, trying to match up their landing with where it felt like he was. The bus was a small target, and with Midnight's Xtonic sun, there was zero margin of error on this landing.

When she and the ship were both satisfied that everything was dialled in correctly, Rose took a deep breath and pulled the dematerialisation lever. The panic on the bus was building in time with the up and down churn of of the time rotor, and she hoped they would get there in time.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor could feel it now, the other telepath Rose had sensed before. Now that he knew what to look for, it was obvious. He could feel the insidious presence, testing his telepathic barriers, trying to get in. Rose had been absolutely right. He was in far more danger than he'd realised.

Standing on the edge of the group, he took a moment to shore up those barriers, protecting both himself and Rose as much as possible. He felt Rose doing the same thing on her end, and gave her a quick hug as they finished.

The sonic screwdriver beeped, and he remembered he'd scanned Sky just a few minutes ago. A quick glance at the results told him what he needed to know. There were two sets of brain waves coming from Sky. One was human, but dormant, the pattern similar to delta wave sleep, but deeper.

The other set of brain waves was not human at all, and they were very active. Whatever it belonged to had taken over the body of Sky Silvestry.

Loud voices pulled his attention away from the sonic, and he looked back at the crowd of humans. Malicious pleasure glinted in Sky's pale blue eyes as the panic escalated once more, and he suddenly realised the entity was stirring people up on purpose.

And when did it start? he wondered. Driver Joe ordering me not to tell people a rescue was on the way? Professor Hobbes suddenly denying there could be life on Midnight when he'd just agreed with Jethro's suggestion that there might be?

"How can she do that? She's got my voice! She's got my words!"

Val's shrill voice brought the Doctor back to the present. Timelines were shifting, and if he didn't step in, they would be pushed towards a what-must-not-be. The entity possessing Sky could not be allowed to reach the Leisure Palace.

The Doctor stepped back into the group as Biff tried to get his wife to calm down. The big man paused after a moment and stared at Sky.

"She's doing it to me."

The Doctor held his hands up. "I think you should all be very, very quiet. Have you got that?" Sky spoke along with him, and fearful gazes flickered from her and back to him. He shook his head. "Ignore her. Listen to me. Take a deep breath, calm down, and be quiet."

He looked directly at each person in turn, starting with Dee Dee. When she nodded, he moved on to Professor Hobbes, then Anniqua, Jethro, and Biff, looking at Val last.

Val's gaze kept shifting from him to Sky, and the Doctor moved to block her view of the other woman. "Val."

Finally, she nodded.

"Thank you."

The Doctor felt the TARDIS shift into the Vortex, and he sighed softly, relieved to know help was on the way. Then he turned back to the possessed woman. There was a glint in her eyes, and he knew things were not going according to the entity's plan.

Good. Rose's approval would have pulled a chuckle from him, if it wasn't followed by a sharp prodding at their telepathic barriers.

He tamped down his own anger and knelt so he was at eye level with Sky. "Now then, Sky." He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "Oh, but you aren't Sky, are you? She's still in there, but I'm talking to the thing possessing her."

He felt the compulsion to rattle off a series of complicated words and nonsense, the sort of thing that would be impossible to repeat without telepathy. But he pressed his lips together, refusing to speak, even when his headache got worse. That was what the entity that wanted him to do, and what the entity wanted, it would not get.

Rose moved to meet the entity at the point where it was attempting to break through their barriers. The Doctor was torn between pride in her ability as she protected them both, and the instinct to pull her to safety. Reluctantly, he acknowledged that if their minds were breached, none of them would be safe, and he turned his attention back to the woman sitting in front of him.

He stood up slowly and shoved his hands into his pockets. "First it repeats, then it catches up," he muttered as he stared down at Sky. "What's the next stage?"

"Next stage of what?" Dee Dee asked warily.

There was a challenging note in the Sky surround sound as the entity spoke along with Dee Dee, and Sky's head tilted just a bit as she looked at the Doctor, asking if he really understood what was going on.

Jethro looked from Sky to the Doctor. "That's not her, is it." It was a statement, not a question. Jethro knew. "That's not Mrs. Silvestry any more."

The Doctor shook his head, then grimaced as that sent a bolt of pain through his temple, reminding him that the entity was still trying to get into his mind.

"Mrs. Silvestry has been possessed by a telepathic entity," he explained. "She's still in there, but she's not driving at the moment, so to speak. But if I could get her back to my lab, I have the means to separate them and restore Sky."

The entity spoke along with him during his entire explanation. An edge entered Sky's voice as she echoed his plan for its defeat, and a shiver went down the Doctor's back at the sound.

"Doctor, make her stop."

The Doctor nodded, feeling completely sympathetic with Val's agitation. The pressure on his barriers was getting worse, and like Rose, he began to wonder if they could hold out long enough to eradicate the malignant entity from Sky Silvestry.

He put a hand on Val's shoulder and gently directed her towards the opposite end of the bus, motioning for the other passengers to follow with them.

"Let's go to the back," he murmured, flinching when he heard Sky's voice behind him. "Stop looking at her," he ordered in a whisper. "Anniqua, Dee Dee? Come on, Jethro. You too. Everyone, come on."

"Doctor, what is going on here?" Professor Hobbes demanded as he followed them down the aisle. "Telepathic possession is hardly a valid answer."

The Doctor glanced back at the surly man. "Professor, I'll allow that you're the expert on Midnight, but unless you are a telepath, my knowledge of telepathy greatly outweighs your own." That shut the man up, and they proceeded to the back of the bus without further protest.

When they were finally huddled together near the galley, he gestured for them to lean in and spoke in a low voice. "Look, my wife and I own… a teleport device," he improvised. Sky was still speaking along with him, but since she'd remained at the front of the bus by the cockpit, the sound was muted. "And she's getting it ready to lock onto us so we can get out of here as soon as possible—much faster than the rescue vehicle could get here. We only have to hold it together for…" He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and queried the TARDIS. "Maybe five more minutes. Then we'll be on our way back to the resort. We can handle five more minutes, can't we?"

He looked at the six humans he'd gotten to know today. Anniqua wrapped her arms around her waist, but nodded once, firmly. Professor Hobbes looked befuddled by everything that had gone on, but he finally didn't argue. Dee Dee returned the Doctor's smile, and Jethro looked determined.

The Doctor looked at Val and Biff. "Five minutes?"

But that wasn't his voice.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose put her her hands on the console and pushed, as if she could get the TARDIS to move faster. The ship seemed to be taking forever to fly the short distance between the resort and the bus, and meanwhile, she could feel the entity moving around their telepathic barriers, testing them, looking for a weak spot. Like a shark circling the waters, she thought bitterly.

Timelines swirled around her, and Rose growled in frustration. She moved her hands to her temples and tried to massage away the headache. It felt like something beating against her skull, and Rose pushed back as hard as she could. If the entity got in… if it managed to escape the bus…

She shuddered. The Doctor had a plan to restore Sky, but the thing inside the other woman's mind had no intention of letting go that easily. A flood of anger washed over Rose, and she staggered back until she slumped against the jump seat.

"Mum?"

"Not now, Jenny." Rose bent over with her head in her hands and her elbows propped up on her knees. She heard footsteps shuffle over the grating and then whispers as Jenny and Donna talked, then she turned her entire focus inward.

The Doctor was separating the other passengers from Sky, trying to keep them calm and keep the entity from taking any more control. But with each step he took, Rose's headache got worse as the entity lashed out at them.

She cheered softly when he finally shut Professor Hobbes up, but her amusement didn't last. A moment later, pain exploded behind her eyes, and then she knew no more.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor shuddered against the dual waves of pain—his own and Rose's—as the entity took over. He had never felt a telepathic attack as swift and brutal. One moment he and Rose were successfully keeping the entity at bay, and the next, they had been subsumed by it.

His lips moved, forming the words just a split second after Sky. "Five minutes?"

On the other end of the bus, Sky stood up and sauntered down the aisle towards him. "Oh, look at that," she purred. "I'm ahead of you."

Sky smirked, and the Doctor was forced to repeat the mocking words. "Oh, look at that. I'm ahead of you."

Even though he was frozen in place, the Doctor could see the other passengers out of the corner of his eye. They shifted away from him, until their backs were against the side of the bus. Nervous gazes darted between him and Sky.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Anniqua asked.

The Doctor tried to move his lips, tried to answer the question and explain that the entity had stolen his ability to think independently. His body shuddered with the effort, but he was a hostage in his own mind, unable to do anything but look at Sky and the smug expression of the telepathic entity who had taken her over.

Sky stopped a few feet away from the Doctor. "You know, don't you, Doctor? You were too clever, that's why I had to take your voice."

In the first moments the entity had been copying them, the passengers had been talking so quickly out of fear that their own words had almost covered up the sounds of Sky's voice repeating them.

But now that the entity had full autonomy over Sky's voice, it spoke slowly and methodically, leaving a pause after every phrase so the Doctor's voice rang clearly through the bus. It didn't want anyone to forget that he was being forced to repeat it.

He ground his teeth together, but couldn't stop his lips from moving. "That's why I had to take your voice."

Sky put her hand on his chest and pushed, and the Doctor swayed back and forth on his feet. "I'm in control now."

Malicious laughter danced in her eyes when the Doctor echoed that line, when he had clearly never been less in control.

"And when the bus comes, it will take me to the Leisure Palace."

Behind Sky, Dee Dee shook her head. "But the Doctor said his wife is coming," she protested, speaking over the Doctor's voice.

Sky tilted her head back, her mocking grin firmly in place. In his mind, the Doctor could feel her tighten her hold on Rose's consciousness, but he couldn't gasp in pain in response.

"Tell them, Doctor."

"Tell them, Doctor." A tear rolled down his face, the body's natural response to pain not muted by the entity's presence.

"Tell them what I did to your wife."

"Tell them what I did to your wife."

He tried to reach for Rose over the bond, but even his mental capacity was leashed, held firmly in the entity's control.

"How I've trapped her in her own mind."

"How I've trapped her in her own mind."

His words were devoid of emotion, despite the Doctor's impotent rage. He wanted to snarl at the entity, to lash out, to hurl all the invectives in his head as he eviscerated the creature responsible for Rose's pain… But instead, he was reduced to simply repeating the truth, in a flat voice lacking any affect.

The frightened passengers shifted until they were huddled together, and Sky stood tall over them, the entity gloating in its presumed victory.

"Why are you doing this?" Anniqua asked. "You killed Joe and Claude. Why?"

"I waited so long. In the dark. And the cold. And the diamonds. Until you came. Bodies so hot. With blood. And pain."

As the Doctor echoed the words, he could feel the entity's delight in playing with the emotions of the humans, and its smug complaisance in its belief that it had removed the one person who could contain it.

Because the entity didn't want to be contained. It wanted to be loose. The full truth became clear to him, even as he was forced to repeat the explanation as if he were talking about himself. The entity had recognised in the bus a way out, a way to get off this planet. It had caused the vehicle to fail, and then it had attacked.

"Why are you telling us this?" Dee Dee asked. "You can't think we'll help you if we know what you're doing."

The entity tilted Sky's head back and looked down her narrow nose at Dee Dee. "I can get inside your head," it hissed softly. The Doctor repeated the words, then it continued. "Make you think things. Make you… do things."

Val whimpered, and the entity half turned to look at her. "I killed the driver. And the mechanic. And now I want you."

oOoOoOoOo

Donna helped Jenny recline Rose on the jump seat, then she stepped back and stared at her friend. "What happened, Jenny?"

Jenny took a shuddering breath. "The… the thing, it's got them both," she whispered. "They're both still in my head, but they don't feel right anymore. And I don't know how to help."

Donna spun around and looked at the younger woman. "Don't you dare, Jenny Tyler," she ordered. "I know you want your parents back—you know I do too—but you saw what happened to Rose when she tried to go head to head with that thing."

She shuddered; watching Rose seize had been terrifying, but this unnatural stillness was worse. She shook her head and looked Jenny in the eye.

"Don't do it."

Jenny sniffed back tears. "But what am I going to do if they never come back?"

"They will," Donna said with a bravado she didn't feel. "They're the Doctor and Rose Tyler. They always make it."

Jenny took Rose's hand. "Mum's hurt worse than Dad, I think. And… They're the Doctor and Rose Tyler, or Dad and Mum. If Mum doesn't wake up, it'll just be Dad, and I can't…"

The possibility was just as unthinkable to Donna, and she grabbed Jenny by the shoulder and forced her to turn away from the prone figure of her mother.

"You listen to me, Jenny Tyler." Jenny blinked, and the tears trickling down her cheeks stopped. "You're forgetting two very important things. First of all, this is Rose we're talking about here. She's tough—really tough. I can't imagine a measly telepathic attack could really stop her."

"What's the other thing, Donna?" Jenny begged. Because not even Rose was invincible, and they both knew it.

But Donna had an answer ready. "They're the Doctor and Rose Tyler, like you said. If Rose can't heal herself, there is no way your dad will let her go. As long as there's the tiniest chance that she'll wake up again, he will scour the universe, looking for a way to bring her back."

They stood together in silence for a few moments, then Donna realised she could still hear the sound of the TARDIS in flight. She turned around and looked at the time rotor, still moving even though her pilot had passed out.

"She wants to get Dad," Jenny said, answering the unspoken question. "She won't stop."

Landing on a bus with some kind of telepathic monster didn't seem like a good idea to Donna, but on the other hand, neither did leaving the Doctor trapped there. The ship lights flashed once, in agreement Donna supposed, and then they landed.

Jenny reached for her hand, and Donna squeezed it tight. "What do we do now?" she muttered.

The door flew open before Jenny could answer, and a blonde woman ran into the TARDIS. Even if she hadn't been a complete stranger, Donna would have known she was the person possessed by the telepathic entity. There was a glint of madness, of malice, in the woman's blue eyes that gave her away.

"At last," the woman murmured as she placed her hands on the console. "Free of Midnight, free of the cold… You will take me anywhere I want to go."

Donna opened her mouth to argue with that, but before she could, a panel beneath the console flew open and gold light poured out of it.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor tried to stop the words, but he couldn't. "I killed the driver. And the mechanic. And now I want you."

Professor Hobbes looked at him, then at Sky. "I don't understand. Who is saying that?"

It was the question the Doctor had feared from the moment he'd felt the entity take over his mind. In only five minutes, the entity had succeeded in confusing the other passengers, making them doubt what they knew to be true. With another forty-five minutes to go until the rescue vehicle arrived, it would turn them against each other, and him.

Five minutes… Hope blossomed in the Doctor's mind as he felt another telepathic connection deepen—one he was very familiar with. He strained his ears, and a moment later, the wheezing of the TARDIS engines filled the bus.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Biff asked as the blue box materialised near the cockpit door.

Sky walked slowly towards the ship. "It's called the TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space," she said, and the Doctor repeated his own oft-used explanation. "It can go anywhere… it can take me anywhere."

She put her hand on the door, and the Doctor was unsurprised when his ship let her in. As entwined as the entity was with Sky now, there was only one way to eradicate the parasite and restore the human woman.

He waited with bated breath, listening and repeating Sky's words as she laid out her plans. "Free of Midnight, free of the cold. You will take me anywhere I want to go."

And then it happened. Gold light flared behind the windows as the heart of the TARDIS opened. The other passengers gasped in surprise, and the Doctor was thankful they all seemed to instinctively shield their eyes from the bright light.

The vice grip on his mind finally released its hold, and the light in the ship faded. The Doctor swayed on his feet and grabbed the back of the nearest seat to keep from collapsing onto the floor.

"It's gone. It's gone," he panted, repeating the words over and over as he struggled to stay standing. His head was pounding, but his mind belonged to him again. He could take paracetamol for the pain.

Rose's mind was still against his, as quiet as it would be if she were asleep. The Doctor started to reach for her, but the sound of muffled sobbing reminded him that there were still human passengers watching in fear.

He straightened and stepped out into the aisle, then walked slowly towards the TARDIS. Just inside the door, he turned around and looked back at Anniqua, Dee Dee, Professor Hobbes, Jethro, Biff, and Val.

"Come with me," he offered, his voice quiet.

The six humans looked at each other for a long moment, shifting their weight as they considered. Dee Dee was the first to take a step forwards, and Professor Hobbes grabbed her elbow.

"You can't go with him," he hissed. "That… that thing has him."

Dee Dee shook his off and glared at him. "The voice was the thing," she said clearly. "And if the Doctor is speaking on his own now, then the thing is gone."

"Very good, Dee Dee," the Doctor praised. "Anyone else? I suppose the rescue vehicle will be here in… oh, about forty-five minutes, give or take. I can't say I'd be interested in staying on this bus for that long, but…" He shrugged. "To each their own."

He turned and walked around the console until he could crouch down by Rose's side. His hand trembled when he brushed his knuckles over her cheek, and a band tightened around his chest when she didn't lean into the caress.

"She hasn't moved, Dad."

The Doctor tore his gaze away from Rose to look at Jenny. "I know," he mumbled as he stood up. In a reverse of how he'd felt only a few minutes ago, he was in complete control of his body and mind, but couldn't feel anything.

The TARDIS hummed, and he nodded once in agreement. Rose would recover faster if he could get her to the zero room. That's what it was there for, after all.

Jenny tried to reach out for a hug, but the Doctor shied away from the contact. "Not yet." If he let himself have the comfort of a hug now, he would break down, and if he did that, he would lose precious time that should be spent taking care of Rose. "Let's get back to the resort, then tend to your mother, then we can hug." She nodded, and he turned to the console.

The subdued group of humans shuffled slowly into the ship as he set the coordinates. "Yes, it's bigger on the inside," the Doctor said tiredly, cutting off the remarks he typically enjoyed. "And it's not exactly a teleport… though it does disappear in one place and reappear in another, which is almost the same as teleporting."

He pulled the dematerialisation lever, and the ship rocked gently into motion. His passengers were too shocked to respond, just clinging to each other and the railing as the TARDIS took them back to the resort.

A groan caught everyone's attention, and the Doctor finally looked in the one spot he had been avoiding since he'd stepped back into his ship. The crumpled form of Sky Silvestry lay on the grating, directly in front of the console.

She slowly pushed herself upright, grabbing at her head as she got onto her knees. "What happened?" she mumbled.

"It's still alive!" Val shrieked. "Get it out of here! Doctor!"

Part of the Doctor wanted to lash out at Sky, to get some kind of retribution for what had happened to himself and Rose. But when he looked into her eyes, he only saw a confused human woman.

Still, he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her. "I think we'll find that this is just Sky," he told Val as he turned on the monitor on the console.

A moment later, the scan was complete. Per his request, both results were brought up on the monitor, side by side. "Yes, look," the Doctor said, pointing to the differences. "This is how I knew Sky had been possessed," he explained, directing their attention to the two consciousnesses in the first scan. "And see here?" He moved to the second scan. "Just one, human mind."

Sky leaned against the railing and put a hand to her temple. "It was so cold—that thing, I mean," she said, stammering a bit. "I thought… I've felt hatred before, but never like that."

"I just have one more question," Jethro said. "Was that the only one, or are there more of them out there?"

The Doctor and Sky exchanged a long look. There was a loneliness about the entity, but not the same level of alone he was familiar with, in being the last of his kind. He saw the same answer in Sky's eyes, but neither of them were willing to put it into words.

Donna read the answer on their faces and nodded sharply. "Right then," she said. "Someone better talk to management, get this place shut down."

The TARDIS landed, and the Doctor grabbed the console to stay standing while others tumbled to the grating. "You're right, Donna," he agreed. "They can build their Leisure Palace somewhere else."

"I'll talk to them," Sky said suddenly. "If anyone can make them understand, it's me."

"We'll all talk to them," Biff said as he dusted himself off.

The Doctor looked around at the group, raising an eyebrow when he saw the same determined expression on every face. "All right then." He gestured at the door. "If I did this right, you should be in the middle of reception. I think they're waiting for you."

Anniqua looked at the door, then at him, then she shrugged and pulled the door open. Another timeline shimmered at the edge of the Doctor's awareness, one where she had died and his fellow passengers had shown him the darkest side of humanity.

I guess it really can always be worse, the Doctor mused as Dee Dee left the TARDIS and pulled the door shut behind her.

Once they were alone, the Doctor sprang into action. "Jenny, can you take us into the Vortex?" He carefully scooped Rose up into his arms. "I'm going to take Rose to the zero room so her mind can rest."

He realised as he said it that neither Jenny nor Donna knew what the zero room was. Thankfully, they both knew now was not the time to stall him with questions they could ask later.

The TARDIS moved the zero room to the front of the main corridor, and the Doctor thanked her before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The headache between his eyes faded as soon as the door closed behind him. At the same time, he heard a soft sigh of relief from Rose. It was the first reaction she'd shown to any stimulus, and he knew bringing her here had been the right choice. Both of their minds had been taxed by the entity's attack, and they needed rest.

In fact…

The Doctor eyed the long, wide couch situated against the wall. Every muscle in his body was screaming at him to sit down, and for once, he didn't feel like protesting that Time Lords don't need rest.

"Let's just lie down for a bit," he murmured to Rose as he carried her over to the couch. He set her down and took a moment to remove his shoes, then stretched them both out and draped a soft blanket over them. "I'll be right here when you wake up," he whispered as he spooned her.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose was aware of two things when she woke up. First, the excruciating pain in her head had mostly faded to a dull headache. And second, the Doctor wasn't there.

Before she could panic, she felt the familiar length of his body stretched out beside hers. He was there physically, even if she couldn't feel him in her mind.

A moment later, she realised the hum from the TARDIS was gone too, and the pieces clicked. The zero room.

"Are you awake?" the Doctor asked. She felt his nose brush against her hair and knew he was shaking his head. "Can I tell you how strange it is to have to ask that question?"

Rose rolled over so she could see his face. "Believe me, I know," she agreed. "So… it's gone?"

The Doctor's eyes shuttered, and even though she knew what he was thinking, there was a strange disconnect without being able to feel his anger and fear and the revulsion at being invaded in that way.

"It's gone," he said shortly.

Rose nodded, then she yawned as another wave of weariness washed over her. She tried to get comfortable on the couch, but being cut off from the Doctor telepathically felt wrong.

She pushed herself up until she was sitting. "Why the zero room?"

"Because the attack strained both of our minds," the Doctor explained as he pulled his shoes back on. "Our telepathic centres specifically. We needed to rest, but if you're ready, we can go back to our room now."

Rose took his hand when he held it out and let him pull her to her feet. "Please."

But as soon as they stepped into the hallway, Rose realised what a sanctuary the zero room had been. Her empty mind was suddenly full of the TARDIS and Jenny and the Doctor, and the inflamed neural pathways flared under the tension.

She put a hand to her temple and tried to hold back a whimper, but it escaped despite her pursed lips. Of course, the Doctor already knew, she reminded herself. He'd stopped and wrapped a supportive arm around her waist before she made a noise.

"All right, love?" he whispered, and her aching head thanked him for being so quiet.

The TARDIS dimmed the lights and pulled back from their connection as much as possible, and Rose sighed in relief. "Yeah. But maybe you could give me something for the headache when we get to our room?" She leaned against his chest. "And maybe we could stay home for a few days."

The Doctor shifted his hold on her, and Rose wasn't surprised when he carefully swept her up into his arms. "I definitely have something for your head, and I won't argue with a chance to take care of you for a few days."

AN: If you read the first version of this and wonder why I changed the conclusion, there are two reasons. First, the fight was out of character-they've really moved past the days of the Doctor being that over protective every time Rose is hurt, and honestly... Rose should have been more upset about the dreams herself.

And the dreams. The dreams are the other reason. They seriously messed with my plans for Turn Left. And I only wrote the dreams in so they would have a reason for the fight that I just said was out of character.

So, instead there's soft hurt/comfort, and the next chapter will be (as planned) a gentle, romantic chapter with just them.