A/N: Woo a longish update! :D The Doctor and Rose have a much needed chat. Only a few chapters left!

"Good morning!" the Doctor said cheerfully as Rose padded into the kitchen, heavy black lines under her eyes and a mop of blonde hair sticking up in all sorts of directions on her head.

Rose nibbled at her lower lip as she looked at him. He was wearing his suit but his tie was undone and his chin had more scruff than he usually tolerated. She thought the crinkles around his eyes were more prominent than usual and she remembered the noises she had heard the night before from his bedroom. Maybe she should have gone and seen him, helped him through his nightmares. Then again, maybe she had done the right thing by ignoring them. She wondered what would have happened.

"Good morning," she replied, feigning enthusiasm and beginning to make herself tea.

He stood up quickly, so fast in fact that he almost toppled over his own TARDIS blue mug. "Let me do it for you," he offered, walking over to the counter.

Rose gave him a short, thankful smile. If he thought that making her tea would make everything okay between them then he couldn't be more wrong, really. She wasn't mad at him just... Confused. Sort of sad, really. "Where are we going today?" she asked, sitting down at the kitchen table. He had been reading a book with a lime green cover, written in a language that, for whatever reason, the TARDIS wasn't translating in her head.

"Hmm," he replied, grabbing her mug out of the shelf and setting it down. "Have I ever shown you Aureus? Brilliant, that is. Entire planet is made out of gold! Your mother would love it."

She laughed and watched his movements. Something was off about him this morning - there was some sort of lingering fear in his voice, some sort of desperation to keep the conversation going. Well, she'd indulge that. "Yeah, she would. It sounds beautiful."

"It is!" the Doctor stated, looking at her over his shoulder and giving her a smile, which she returned.

"What are you reading?" she asked, spinning around the book on the table to get a better look. "Language won't translate."

"Probably because it's ancient," he explained. "It's the complete history of the development of the discovery of neural stimulation on Trunca'an XIX. It's fascinating, really, did you know that their first innovative scientist was named Turnip? Can you imagine? Personally, I rather like turnips, but all the same..."

Rose listened as he rambled on about one topic, then another, then another. After a minute or so he handed her her cup of tea and sat down across from her, smiling as he spoke. She brushed a hand through her mess of hair and attempted to make peace with it. He mimicked her movements, brushing his own fingers through his brown locks.

But after five minutes he was still rambling at a hundred miles an hour and she laughed, "Doctor, you may want to slow down. Calm down and catch your breath."

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it just as quickly. "Good point. Just get excited about turnips, I suppose. Is your tea okay?"

She nodded. "Just the way I like it."

"Good," he said, looking far more relieved than she thought was necessary. "Molto bene!" The Doctor rubbed his hands together and his eyes darted around the room as if he was now looking for something.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Rose asked. She moved one of her hands to cover his left hand and it startled him slightly.

He licked his lips and nodded tightly. "I'm always alright," he answered automatically.

Rose gave him a playful eye-roll. "Nobody is always alright."

The Doctor shrugged nonchalantly and stood, removing his hand from underneath hers. "I've been doing it just fine for, oh, however many years. I lose track. Anyways! Finish your tea, shower, console room, golden planet! Sound like a plan?"

Rose smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

The golden planet of Aureus was stunningly beautiful, and Rose had, well, quite literally had her breath taken away by it. The atmosphere wasn't exactly breathable for humans, so the Doctor gave her a mask that allowed her to breath while they explored. The planet itself had golden mountains with a clear blue cascade. There were five suns, each arranged in a perfect linear pattern, and the natives looked similar to humans.

He held her hand the whole time and stayed unnecessarily close, and whenever he got annoyingly overprotective she gave him a look which was almost always answered with his large, innocent doe-eyes that very plainly stated 'what did I do?'. She couldn't figure out what was going on in that insane brain of his, but she made up her own mind to talk to him about it later, since it very obviously had something to do with the previous night when they had kissed.

Of course, within about two hours of being on the planet, they found themselves within a jail cell with gold bars and a golden bed and a golden latrine. Rose sat down on the bed immediately and swung her legs, eyes trained on the man in front of her. The man in question, on the other hand, was currently feeling along the walls and occasionally licking things.

"We'll be out of here in eighteen hours," he stated eventually, looking at her.

Rose's eyes threatened to pop out of her head. "Eighteen hours?! Are they going to feed us?"

He sniffed and looked through the bars. "Yes. Well, by yes I mean probably. And by probably, I mean there is a chance that they will feed us. No need to worry, though!" He spun around on his heels. "I have food in my pockets! Not a full-fledged meal, mind you, but I'm sure I have a bag of Jelly Babies in here somewhere."

Rose sighed, leaning back on the golden bed. There went her plans to talk with him. Then again, she thought with amusement, maybe this was perfect. A place to talk where he couldn't run away from their issues, as was his habit.

She remembered how in love with her he had been when he had been under the Cupid Fly's influence - how completely besotted. If you took away the horny part, it had been absolutely adorable, really. Was it wrong that she wished for that just a tiny bit again? Not for his mind to be completely taken over or anything of the sort, but just for him to love her. To want to hold her and be with her and appreciate her. Why couldn't it be that easy?

"I'm sorry we're in jail, Rose," he said, breaking her out of her thoughts and sitting beside her on the bed. "And you can take that mask off - they've registered you as human so the air is now breathable. You'll just need to put it back on when we leave.

Rose nodded and took off the gas mask, placing it on the ground beside the bed. "It's fine. Not like this is the first time, or the worst. Not even close to the worst."

He looked around appreciatively. "It is made of gold."

"Yep," she mused, bouncing up and down on the bed. "And the mattress is comfy, and, er, golden. That toilet might be a tad difficult, though."

The Doctor looked at the completely exposed toilet and swallowed before turning back to her. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, yeah?"

Rose hummed in agreement, bouncing her leg slightly. There was an awkward silence, there had been quite a lot of those lately, and she hated it. She wanted things to go back to the way they were, talking and laughing and joking... But she also wanted more than that. If only she knew what he really wanted.

"Rose, could we talk?" he asked, staring at her.

Rose looked at him in shock. Was this a serious talk, or was he just preparing to make some lame joke and escape the topic again? She desperately didn't want to get her hopes up. "Yeah, what about?"

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Last night?" His voice was a little squeaky and scared, as if he thought she was going to smack him across the face.

"It was my fault," Rose blurted before he could get a word out.

The Doctor frowned. "No, it was my fault. I shouldn't have started it and I... I just..." His eyes fell shut. "It was irrational. I lost control."

Rose bit her lower lip. "I wanted you to lose control, though," she confessed. "I wanted all of that, and it was bad timing and bad everything and I'm sorry. Please don't try and take the blame for this, Doctor." Was that all he thought that kiss had been? Irrational?

Of course, he did anyways. "Well, I shouldn't have kissed you back like that and then I shouldn't have run away. I should have said we needed to talk it through, that... I didn't handle it well at all, Rose. You don't need to try and spare me the blame when it's rightfully mine."

"Well," she said after a moment, "I forgive you, then. But listen to me, Doctor. In situations like that, or just in general, you've got to tell me what you're thinking." Rose moved a hand to his arm and squeezed it. "I want to help out and I want us to be able to figure out what's going on but I'm not a mind reader... You have to talk to me."

He smiled. "You know what I'm thinking right now?"

She moved her hand down his arm to his wrist and stroked it with her thumb. "Mmm?"

"I think you're brilliant, Rose Tyler," he beamed, his appreciative gaze flickering back and forth between her eyes. "Absolutely brilliant."

"You know what I think?" Rose said in a hushed voice, looking down at their now intwined hands. He toyed slightly with her fingers, running his thumb along her knuckles. He raised an eyebrow in question and she looked up at him, her body feeling a nice, tingling warmth as if a burden was being lifted off of her chest. "I think that I love you."

An emotion she couldn't detect flashed across his face for a moment but was quickly replaced with pure adoration. Rose could feel his hearts thumping quickly through his wrist. The Doctor pulled her in for a hug and she buried her nose in his shoulder, breathing the scent of him in. "Quite right too," he said into her ear.

Rose felt as though she had been stabbed slightly in the heart when he didn't return her words.

But pulling away and looking into his eyes, she realized something. She realized it whenever she saw him looking at her when he thought she wasn't looking, realized it whenever he did something that proved she had him wrapped around her little finger, realized it whenever he smiled or joked or talked with her about the stars. She realized it when he rambled incessantly and unashamedly. She realized it when she looked at him and got this warm, tingly feeling from her head to her toes and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. And even if he couldn't say the words, that was okay.

She knew.

A/N: Please leave a review and tell me what you thought of this chapter! Love it / hate it?