[When I first wrote this chapter, I remember that I needed to make a quick move through this information because it wasn't all important at the time. The most important information would be exchanged privately between Rose and the Doctor, but I wanted Amy and Rory to get the basic info down to keep them in the loop. Basically, I wrote this about a year or so ago and I don't remember much. But this was last chapter I ever fully wrote for this fic, and now I'm trying to start it back up again. This is a slow lived chapter, but please bare for me. I may not have worked on this fic for over a year, but I've spent all this time trying to build that goddamn ballroom. So, if you don't want to stick around for my crap should-be-interludes-but-aren't, then at least stick around for that room. I have no idea when this fic will be continued, but it will. I will finish this fic and then start the next installment for this series, which I have much more ideas for. And rereading this fic, especially this chapter, has made me realize that I have soooo many edits to make to the remaining series 5 rewrite... Oops. But thank you for waiting and keeping up so far!]

"Thanks," Rory said to Rose. "For helping, that is. And I'm really sorry for the way I've acted. I'm usually very nice. Not that I'm trying to vouch for myself, but I wasn't really in the right mindset and usually I'm the more calmer of us three and yeah."

Rose chuckled and smiled a tongue touched grin at Rory. "You're rambling a bit."

"Yeah, right, sorry. Sort of grows on you, the habit, when you're around him so much." Smiling cheekily, Rory stirred at the soup and said, "Though I'm sure you already know that."

They both laugh quietly before Rose hummed knowingly, and nodded "Oh, trust me, I know."

Smiling, they continued tending to their tasks in an almost companionable quiet.

"And I appreciate you apologizing. Thank you," Rose said softly as she gave Rory a gentle smile, one he returned eagerly. Then Rose's expression turned serious. "So what do you think? The first grilled cheese is done.. Do you say we give it to Amy or not the Doctor?"

Rory's face dropped as he shook his head and responded, "Oh, definitely not the Doctor."

Rose gave him another tongue touched smile before flipping the sandwich onto a plate and cutting it in half. She turned and walked to the Doctor's side at the table. Slowly bending down, the put the grilled cheese in front of him and leaned in close to his ear. He turned to look at her as she whispered to him.

"This isn't for you."

Furrowing his brows, the Doctor watched as Rose straightened herself and walked back towards Rory. Looking down at the table in front of him, he noticed that it's empty. He'd failed to notice that Rose had slid it across the table and in front of Amy. As he turned to her, pout on his face, she hummed and declared around a mouthful of food, "I like her, we're keeping her."

Furrowing his brows more, he tried to reach for the second half of Amy's sandwich, but she was faster and blocked his hand.

"See if I keep you around, Amelia Pond, if you don't learn to share." He used the index finger of one hand to wave distractedly in her face as he used his other hand to steal the half sandwich still untouched on the plate, this time successes and quickly shoving a bite into his mouth.

"Hey!" Amy whined and smacked the Doctor's arm. He simply smiled back at her.

"Do you think we can keep you and chuck him?" Rory asked Rose loud enough for the Doctor to hear.

Rose laughed and the Doctor took another big bite of his stole meal in what he thought was an intimidating manner.

They all spent the next hour or so eating and chatting, making light conversation and allowing Rose, Amy, and Rory the chance to get to know each other. But eventually, as all things do, their meal ended, clean up was done, and it was time to go to the medbay.

The Doctor ran tests and scans and blood samplings and comparisons for just over two hours, Amy and Rory refusing to leave, in support and comfort of their new friend. Rose was gratefully, and even though the Doctor wouldn't admit it out loud, he was, too. At one point, the Doctor puts away all that he's taken out and crossing his arms and ankles, lean against a table.

"All set?" Rose asked, knowing he wasn't.

He raised his eyebrows at her but otherwise kept his face neutral.

"Go on, then. But she won't let you in."

"We'll see," the Doctor simply replied and slowly made his way to stand in front of Rose, placing himself between her legs. "Amy, Rory, I'm just going to look in Rose's head. If anything goes wrong, we should both be able to back away. If not, if something seems off, try to coax us out of it. Rory, as a nurse, I'm trust you to be able to take care of Rose if anything, and I mean, anything, were to happen."

"Understood," Rory nodded.

Placing his hands on her cheeks, the Doctor waited for Rose to nod her consent before he pressed their foreheads together and slid his fingers up to her temples and tried to go into her mind. At first, he was able to settle under the surface, moving around the base of her conscious, and waits a while, giving her time to adjust to the intrusion. He felt a mental nod of encouragement and he slowly made his way to the core of her mind, only to be halted by a pulsing wave of defense. Stilling for a moment, the Doctor took a deep breath through his nose to collect himself, and gently pressed forward, only to be eased back by wave after wave of protection from what he was now recognizing as the feel of the Bad Wolf. He let himself wade in the feel of the uneasiness, trying to caress both Rose and the Wolf and send them comfort. The Wolf didn't back down but she doesn't protest, either, so the Doctor attempted to go forward once more until the waves get rougher and the Doctor felt like he was being pushed back to shore. He tried not to go with the current and soon found himself buried under a forcefully pushed wave of possession.

This wave didn't feel like the Wolf. He assumed Bad Wolf would be very possessive of Rose, but not this way. No, this was the sort of possessiveness only he ever held over Rose.

Well.

Him and James.

And that was when he finally retreated, moving quickly away from the Wolf's den, vacating Rose's center. Once back in the base of Rose's mind, he debated leaving and speaking to her verbally, in front of Amy and Rory, or staying and talking in here. He went for the latter.

Rose told him that she told him that Bad Wolf won't let him in.

He told her he knows. He told her that apparently he won't let himself in, either.

Rose knew what he means, of course she did, and so she told the Doctor that he was always jealous of himself; talking about both him towards James and James towards him, and he doesn't didn't deny it.

He couldn't be sure what happened between James and Bad Wolf during Rose's first labor, but if nearly having just been smothered by James was anything to go by, he could only imagine. But if the Bad Wolf wa willing to let what's let of James' forever sleeping conscious protect Rose, then she must be safe enough.

Maybe one day the Wolf would let him protect her, too.

Eventually he left her mind.

"Find everything you need?" Rose asked.

"I think so, yes."

"Then do you mind explaining some things?" Amy asked quietly, so not to spook them.

The Doctor moved to lean against the table beside Rose and ask what's first.

They wanted to know how long she'll live, but at Rose's request, not how long she already has lived. He told them that he doesn't know, but if James was correct in assuming that her lifespan is linked to that of the TARDIS, which is linked to that of his, then she would literally live as long as him.

Amy saw it as a sort of tragic love story.

They let her.

They wanted to know how Rose and the Doctor were both the Dream Lord. The Doctor briefly mentioned James's conscious protecting Rose's. Her own walls don't have a single crack, but his did. James' conscious came from that crack; he created it by being created. James and the Doctor were connected, and since Rose was connected to James, it connected her to the Doctor. And since Bad Wolf is connected to the TARDIS, which is connected to James and the Doctor, he thought she may have played a roll in this, too. But the Dream Lord fed off the Doctor's conscious and darkness, and found itself a feast, having stumbled upon James, making its way to Rose. Big, difficult to explain, sciencey process.

"That means he either doesn't know what it is, or how to fully explain it," Rose supplied.

They wanted to know how Rose got here. That make the Doctor grin like the cat who got the cream.

"Amy, what was our first adventure?" he prompted.

Amy pursed her lips and knitte her eyebrows, asking what the alien in her house had to do with Rose being here.

"In your bedroom, what did I find?"

Amy blinked and stared critically at the man before her. "A crack in my wall."

"You had a crack in your wall?" Rose asked, narrowing her eyes.

"That's right!" The Doctor clapped and the three remaining persons in the room stare at him. "Come on, we said this at the beginning. Rose trapped in a parallel universe, without even a rip or tear through time or space.. Not even a crack? And what's the one thing separating me from James? A crack. A crack Rose can feel and then-"

"What did the crack look like?" Rose asked Amy. "Did it look like this?" Taking a pen and paper from one of the Doctor's pockets, she drew a crack, looking exactly like the one of Amy's wall.

"Yeah!" Amy exclaimed. "But how-"

"There was a crack in my room in my flat. This exact crack," Rose explained, if not a little skeptically.

"So you're telling me that those dream flecks got into your subconscious, found the crack connected to James, latched on, found Rose, and then pulled her through the crack in her wall, that's just like the crack in Amy's wall, because that crack isn't just a crack in time in space, it's the crack created by and to create James?" Rory said slowly, trying to piece together the Doctor's explanation for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Basically, yes."

"Well."

"Yeah."

"My head hurts," Amy complained.

"Yeah."

"This.. It's been a day," Rose sighed in exhaustion.

"That's it! I'm not sitting around doing any more bloody exercises or tests or listening to the same explanation over and over again in a billion different ways. We're going to the ballroom!" Rose exclaimed, pushing herself up from her seat and walking out the medbay door and out into the corridor.

"Finally!" The Doctor clapped his hands with a manic grin.