Rose had been sleeping soundly in her gloriously comfortable bed when she heard a shriek of terror. She shot up and ran for Tony's nearby bedroom, clad only in the very long t-shirt she used as a nightshirt. It took her only a few steps to find the simple door that opened into a small, plain bedroom that TARDIS had marked as the boy's.
She pushed the door open and looked around, eyes wide, and saw Tony sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes wide. "Are you alright? What happened?" she asked as her heart thumped loudly.
"What happened?" asked the Doctor redundantly as he came rushing in, dressed as usual in his suit and chucks.
"There was a face," Tony said, his voice coloured with fear. "Laughing like mad. And this sound…" The boy clapped out four rapid notes with his hands. The Doctor's eyes went wide. "Something about it felt very, very bad but I don't know why." His mouth formed a moue of distaste and his eyes seemed very confused.
It wasn't the first time Tony had had bad dreams, in fact until the past month or two, he had them more often than not and had rarely slept a full night undisturbed. But this was new. Rose had soothed him back to sleep many nights after he'd woken from nightmares of Pete or Jackie dying, or of them being found by Torchwood or hurt by some of the aliens they had met in their travels. This particular dream was new.
"Do you think you can get back to sleep now?" the Doctor asked. His expression had a dark cast to it, but he spoke softly to the child.
Tony frowned and nodded. "I think so. It's gone now. Don't even remember what I –" he was cut off by a yawn and lay back down. Rose reached over and pulled his blanket back up over him.
"Sleep well, Tony. I'm just across the corridor if you need me, okay?"
"'Kay," he said quietly, his disturbed sleep rising to claim him again. His eyes dropped closed. "Night Rose, Doctor," he muttered.
"Goodnight, Tony," Rose said, leaning down to plant a kiss on his brow.
"Sleep well," said the Doctor. Rose followed him out a moment later and closed the door behind her.
"What is it?" she asked, noting his troubled look.
The Doctor led her down the corridor a bit, to get away from Tony's door. "That sound," he clapped his hands together in the same four beat pattern Tony had made. "This is very important, Rose. What does Tony know about the Master?"
"Almost nothing as far as I know," she said, shrugging. "John didn't like to talk about him. I don't think he ever told Tony about him."
The Time Lord repeated the clapped notes. "This is a signal. It's a sound the Master used when he took over the Earth. That year that we reversed. Do you know about that?"
"Yes, John told me," Rose said sadly, remembering his despair at how much suffering had come to those at the centre of the storm.
"There is no reason Tony should know that sound," he said fiercely, running his fingers through the controlled chaos of his hair. "There's no reason anyone should know it, at least no one besides the handful of us who were there. The Master is dead, I burnt his body myself."
Rose put a comforting hand on his upper arm. "We'll figure it out, yeah? There's got to be an explanation." She stifled a yawn. "How about we figure it out in the morning? I'm knackered."
"Alright," said the Doctor. "I'll see you in the morning." He hesitated a moment before he made to turn, but Rose stopped him. She stood on the tips of her toes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
"Goodnight," she said, covering her mouth with a hand as she yawned.
"Goodnight, Rose Tyler," said the Doctor with a gentle smile. "I'll see you in the morning." He turned and walked down the corridor back towards the console room where he had been upgrading some of the navigational circuitry, but there was no sound of footsteps from Rose returning to her room.
"Doctor?" she asked softly. He froze. "Have you slept at all since you got here?"
"No, no I haven't," the Doctor said, turning back. Rose walked towards him and reached out to take his hand. He looked from their joined hands to her face with a raised eyebrow.
"You need to sleep, then, come on."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, and right now I'm tired and you're tired and I have a warm bed and you're here so come on."
She smiled, and turned to go back the way she had come earlier. She tugged him along behind her and pulled him into her room. Rose crawled back into her covers and pulled them back, inviting him.
He quickly toed off his shoes, removed his jacket, and stepped out of his trousers, draping his suit over Rose's desk chair. He slid into the bed beside her and she curled into his arms with a sigh. He signalled to the TARDIS to turn off the lights and the room fell into darkness.
"I have missed you," Rose said into the night.
He placed a soft kiss on her temple. "I've missed you too, you brilliant woman."
"And as much as I want to hear you say nice things about me, I am really tired. Goodnight, Doctor."
"Goodnight, Rose."
Within minutes, she was asleep, and he felt himself drifting off with the once-familiar, and very much missed, comforting weight of Rose Tyler in his arms once more.
They'd not been asleep long when Rose startled awake, knocking him out of his own sleep.
"Doctor," she said quietly. "Doctor, I think I just had Tony's nightmare."
"What?" he asked. "What d'you mean?"
Despite the disquiet in her mind at the memory of the dream, Rose found his sleep-mumbled voice adorable. "There was this face, and that rhythm. Just like Tony said."
"Hm. Do you remember the face?"
Rose frowned, trying to pull the memory back, but it fell between her fingers like sand. "No. But it felt wrong. Like I should be afraid of it. That sound," she tapped out the rhythm on his arm. "Just felt… ominous. It's hard to describe."
"Something must be transmitting telepathically if you're getting it too," he mumbled. "I'll look into it in the morning." He pulled her against him again. "Right now, I am having a very pleasant dream that I'm in bed with the beautiful Rose Tyler and I sort of want to keep that one going."
Rose giggled in the dark room and settled into his arms again. "Well, then, sweet dreams, Doctor."
"Mmm," he mumbled, squeezing her as he settled back into sleep.
"Well, there was definitely some sort of telepathic interference last night," the Doctor said, scanning the monitor above the console. "Pretty diffuse origin, though. I can't seem to pinpoint it. It's like it's coming from everywhere."
"Have you seen anything like this before?" Rose asked, looking at the incomprehensible swirling Gallifreyan script over his shoulder.
He shook his head and pushed his spectacles a bit further up his nose. "No, I haven't, and I don't like it. The TARDIS should shield you from any harmful telepathic communication while we're inside, do I doubt it'll hurt you, but I don't like that it's connected to the Master."
"Reckon I'd like to stay well away from him after what you've told me about him." Rose shuddered.
Tony, who had been outside collecting his favourite fruit – the orange berries that the Doctor had informed them were named ressifruit – popped his head into the TARDIS. "Hey Doctor, there's someone here to see you."
The Doctor looked up at Tony quizzically. "Someone here?"
Tony shrugged. "He said he's here with a message for you. Out on the beach. Blue suit, pink skin, face full of tentacles…"
"An Ood?" Rose asked, face breaking in a smile. "How on Earth could an Ood get here?"
"That is a very good question," the Doctor said. After his last visit from Ood Sigma, he was not in a particular hurry to meet up with the noble, but strange, creatures so soon. "You stay here Rose, Tony."
"Fat chance," Rose snorted.
The Doctor strode quickly out of his TARDIS, Rose at his side. Tony followed behind as they walked to the beach where none other than Ood Sigma himself stood, translator in hand. The boy hung back a bit, watching from a distance.
"You have delayed too long,"
"I'm in no hurry for my song to end, thanks," he replied seriously. "Still have plenty to do, me." He took Rose's hand.
"You will come with me."
"Hold on, don't I get a say in this?"
"The Mind of the Ood is troubled and beckons you. You will come with me to the Ood Sphere, one hundred years after we last met." The Ood replaced his translator and vanished from the beach.
"There is no way he should be able to do that," the Doctor said pensively. "Reach back hundreds of years to talk to me." Rose watched the spot where the Ood had been moments before with a scowl on her face.
"What do you think it's about?" Tony asked.
"No better way to find out than to go. Back to the TARDIS, then." He turned to walk back the way they came.
"Wait, Doctor," Rose said, not letting go of his hand but also not turning to walk after him. His momentum and their still-joined hands caused him to turn back to her quickly. Her eyes were troubled as she met his. "What did you mean? Your song ending?"
"Later," he said softly. "Let's just get back to the TARDIS and figure out what is going on here."
Rose, realizing that she would get nothing more out of him until the mysterious Ood's presence was explained turned with a sigh and followed him.
It took them only a few minutes to reach the clearing where the TARDISes were parked. Tony stood outside the younger of the two, hand on the door, face scrunched up in concentration. "She still won't open," he said sadly.
"No matter," the Doctor said, coming up behind him and setting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "We'll travel in mine. She knows the way already, anyway. Less chance of going off-course that way."
"But still a very good chance of going off course because this idiot's driving," Rose teased.
"Oi!"
Tony laughed at the pair of them. Together, they piled into the blue police box. "It feels wrong to leave her here, though," Tony said.
"I know," Rose said. "But we'll be back. Right?"
"Oh of course," the Doctor assured as he started inputting coordinates into the TARDIS' navigational system. "This is my home planet! Now that I've got it back, I'll never leave for good." He smiled broadly at Tony. He waved the boy over towards the console.
"Now, take that handle there, no not that one," he said as Tony pointed to one of the many such handles on the console. "Not that one either. Yep, that one. Okay, when I say go, you swing that hard as you like, alright?"
Tony nodded and looked proudly at Rose, his hand on the TARDIS' console, the ship humming happily at the contact. She looked over at the Doctor, eyebrows raised and he shot her back a goofy smile, puffing up his chest a bit in pride at the interaction of the boy with his ship.
Rose shook her head, amused, and watched the Doctor twirl about the console, hitting buttons and flicking switches in a long-practiced choreography that she hadn't witnessed for many years. She couldn't help smiling as she watched his grin grow wider.
"Alright Tony, into the Vortex. Go!"
Tony pulled the handle, hard, and shouted in time with the Doctor "Allons-y!" They turned and grinned at each other while Rose dissolved into giggles at the perfectly matching gleeful expressions on their faces.