The first problem is that neither of them knows how to fly a TARDIS.

Rodan has the telepathy, and Leela the pieces of knowledge picked up from helping the Doctor, but neither of them really know. It doesn't help that their new TARDIS has the factory settings up and that he is refusing to connect with Rodan.

It could end here, but neither of them feel like going back to a life they both know they don't want. So instead Leela demonstrates that she knows how to put a TARDIS into flight.

As far as take-offs go, it's not the worst Leela's been through, and Rodan has never been on a TARDIS before, so she has nothing to compare it with. But it's bumpy, and shaking, and their TARDIS makes a noise that could have come from the depths of hell, if either of them believed in such a thing, and right at the worst moment, with Rodan hanging tightly onto the plain metal console and wishing she had never been Loomed, Leela yells, "She is not a Time Lord!"

The shaking stops. Their TARDIS settles into normal flight and connects (finally) to Rodan's mind. She gasps, and sags on the console, eyes falling shut.

He's huge, in her mind, a solid unmovable presence that cannot be altered or changed or persuaded. He cares nothing for her hopes and wishes, and wants only to upset the Time Lords. It takes her a minute, but she eventually shows him what she wants: to travel, to see all the things she has missed in a century and a half spent on Gallifrey, to help people, to learn – and most of all, to make Leela happy.

He ruffles through her memories in a strange, haphazard manner, and then withdraws slightly, exuding contentment.

Rodan braces herself on the console and gasps, air fluttering in and out of her tubes. "I think I passed."

Leela laughs, resting a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "Of course you did. Damon would not have chosen this one if he did not think it would turn out well."

She doesn't have quite the same confidence in Damon's judgement, but Leela's assurance is nice. Her TARDIS – no, their TARDIS, she supposes, given everything – their TARDIS rumbles comfortably in her mind. K-9 makes a noise that sounds disturbingly like a flubble and extends a probe to the console. There is a tense moment as their TARDIS studies him, and then the base of the console opens slightly and K-9 plugs in.

Leela smiles as Rodan leans into her touch. "Where to?"

"Rassilon knows," Rodan says, riding the cliff's edge between exhilaration and exhaustion. "Do you know how to navigate him?"

Leela looks at her strangely. "No? You do not either?"

Rodan puts a hand on the console, hoping vaguely that everything she has heard about TARDISes is wrong and that he can tell her how to fly him. Nothing changes, and she sighs. "No."

Surprisingly, Leela laughs again, tugging slightly on Rodan's shoulder to turn her. "That is good! Then we shall have adventures, like I did with the Doctor!"

It is impossible for Rodan not to return the smile. She flips a switch on the console, because it seems like the right thing to do. They are in flight, although their destination is both unknown and unknowable, but they are together.

Life is perfect.


What Leela does not know how to do is land a TARDIS.

It comes as a surprise to both of them when he lands on his own with the normal cranking noise. The console room shudders hard enough to knock Rodan into Leela and then comes to a sudden halt.

They share looks. Leela shrugs and makes for the door. It is best to see what is on the other side. She has no wish to sit in the TARDIS and wait for someone else to decide her actions. The switch to open the doors is at the same place as it was on the Doctor's. She presses it.

The doors creak open and they both stare out.

They have landed in a white corridor. It looks boring. Frowning, Leela steps out into it, spinning around. "It appears safe," she calls back to Rodan.

After a moment, Rodan follows her. She closes the doors firmly. "Where are we?" The hesitation in her voice reminds Leela that her partner has only left her home territory once before.

"I am not sure," Leela says, frowning. She rests a hand on her knife. "It reminds me – but no. It is not."

Rodan steps closer to her. "What?"

Leela shakes her head, but the thought will not go away. "It seems almost like the TARDIS. The Doctor's," she corrects quickly.

"It's not," Rodan says. "It can't be."

They both look around. The walls are white. The floor and ceiling are grey. There is nothing in the corridor but a door at each end, and their TARDIS. It looks like a grey door with nothing around it.

From one end of the corridor, Leela can hear noises. "Yes, yes, I'll take a look, shall I?" a voice calls.

Rodan squeaks. "I know where we are."

Frowning, Leela moves towards the noises, towards the far door. "I do not," she says, annoyed. She draws her knife.

The door bursts open before she can reach it. A familiar face stares down at her, eyes bulging. "Leela! What are you doing here?"

Leela grins. "Doctor!" she yells at the same moment as Rodan says, "Your Excellence."

The Doctor frowns at Rodan and hmms. Looking past her, he grins brightly, displaying all his teeth. "You brought a TARDIS."

"Not intentionally," Rodan mutters.

The Doctor brushes at his hair. It springs back as soon as he lowers his hand. "Well." He looks at Leela, still smiling. "Well," he says again, "it wasn't Andred."

Leela moves her feet very slightly. "No." She isn't ashamed of Rodan, not really, but she had lied to the Doctor, and she does not like to lie.

"And – oh, best do this right, hadn't I? You have my blessing."

"For whatever that is worth," Leela mutters, smiling.

"Quiet, savage," the Doctor tells her jokingly. "Now – why are you here?"

Rodan looks at Leela with a brief soft smile before answering. "Our TARDIS landed here. I –we can't fly him."

The Doctor swipes at his hair again. "Can't or don't know how?"

"Is there a difference?" Rodan asks, tilting her head.

Grinning, the Doctor walks around them, towards their TARDIS. "Of course. You're a Technician, you should have the circuits needed to connect with him." He frowns at the door. "Key."

Rodan hands him the key, shaking her head. "He won't open for you."

The Doctor doesn't reply, just inserts the key into the lock and turns. The door fails to open.

"Told you," Rodan says as the Doctor kicks the door frame.

With a short sigh, the Doctor throws the key at her. "Open it."

Rodan catches the key easily, going to unlock their TARDIS. "He doesn't like you."

The Doctor doesn't reply, but does lean towards the TARDIS. "What type?"

"Fifty-one," Rodan says.

"Ah, he replies and rocks back on his heels. "The CIA commissioned that type, and then used them as transport for assassins. All of them either rebelled or went insane," he says blandly. "I may have helped."

Leela grins. "Then he dislikes the Time Lords as much as I do!"

"Yes, but it does make it a bit difficult for me to help," the Doctor says, frowning. "He won't let me in."

Rodan makes a noise, the same one that she makes when Leela is being ignorant again. "Then hook me up to yours instead of the other way around."

The Doctor grins brightly, turning toward her. "Of course! Come here." Within seconds, he's pulling a rondel off the wall, revealing a mass of wires. "Won't hurt a bit."

Leela snorts her laughter as Rodan walks towards him. "It will," she says, smiling.

"Well yes," the Doctor says, annoyed, and hands a wire to Rodan, "but you didn't have to tellher that."

Rodan shakes her head, knuckles white on the wire. "I already knew, thank you Leela."

"Go!" the Doctor shouts, and drops to the floor. After a moment, Leela imitates him. Rodan stays standing.

Seconds pass before Rodan moves again, dropping the wire and panting loudly. "It's done."

The Doctor stands, limbs flailing. "You'll be able to fly him now. Or – enough, anyway." There's something almost like kindness in his face as he looks at Rodan. "Not like me, not as well as me, but – better."

"Thank you," Rodan says quietly.

The Doctor looks over her shoulder. "Go. Explore the universe. You'll see –"

"Are you lonely?" Leela asks, cutting him off.

He turns to look at her, tugging on his collar. "No. I'm not."

She is not disappointed. She is not. It would be sad for him to be lonely, after he has done so much for her. But – has he truly forgotten about her so soon? To not miss her, to not care that she had left – she had mourned him, as one does a family member who left for a different tribe. Had he not done the same for her?

"Doctor?" The voice comes from the still–open door. "Did you get lost again?"

The Doctor flushes. She thinks for a moment, but she cannot remember the Doctor ever turning red before. "Ah – no, no, just – a small problem, almost dealt with."

"Oh Doctor," the speaker says. It sounds female. "I'm coming to help. "

He straightens, eyes bulging. "No!" It comes out as a squeak and Leela snorts. "No. I – almost dealt with. You – you just focus on finding the next segment."

The silence is faintly suspicious. "Very well. Five minutes, Doctor."

The Doctor tugs at his collar again. "She's telling me what to do. Me – the cheek!" With a sigh, he looks at her. "Goodbye, Leela."

"She is travelling with you," Leela says, ignoring his comment.

He swipes at his hair again. "Yes. She is. I – not my idea. The Time Lords, you know how they get. Thought I needed assistance." He looks shocked at the idea.

Leela frowns. "Hmm," she says, imitating him. "Are you happy, then?"

The Doctor stares at her for a moment, blue eyes wide. "Yes, Leela. I think I am."

"Goodbye, Doctor," she tells him, smiling slightly. "Best of hunting."

Rodan laughs, shaking her head. "Another Gallifreyan, Doctor. I can feel her." She smiles, moving towards Leela and grabbing her hand. "Goodbye. And thank you. Good luck with your new companion."

The Doctor grins at them, toothily, and twirls off for the door.


Their TARDIS is perfect. He likes to disguise himself as a doorway, blocking off the end of alleyways or standing lonesome in fields. Inside he prefers curves to right angles, tans and oranges and a touch of blues in colour. He prefers K-9 to Rodan, and Leela to anything. Some days, when Rodan is frustrated and her hair standing on end, when she has been programming and reprogramming his coordinates for hours, always getting locked out by security systems that hadn't existed a minute ago or by faulty memory banks who apparently cannot contain the coordinates, those days she is bitter about it, and snaps at Leela, and locks K-9 out of the console room.

Fortunately, those days are rare.

Most days it is Rodan who figures out where to go, and Leela who takes them there, with assistance from K-9. It isn't terribly accurate: they're frequently off by several years or a few miles. Occasionally they are right on target – more often, they have no clue where they are when they step out.

Leela always steps out first, frequently with her hand on her knife. She is closely followed by K-9, and then by Rodan, who is more hesitant and nervous than her partner.

Rodan is not, on her own, adventurous. She prefers to let others make the major decisions and then is content to decide whether or not to follow. She is strong, intelligent, and opinionated – but she is not adventurous, and left to her own devices, would be quite content to read her way through the TARDIS library, which contains a significant percentage of the Matrix.

She isn't left to her own devices.

Leela is adventurous, and has no patience for anyone else's opinions, most of the time. She simply expects that Rodan will follow, and will help, and will do her best to get them into and out of trouble, and that in all things Rodan will be her partner and her equal. From another person, this casual expectation would have left a sick feeling in her gut, and it has, when the Time Lords expected that she would always be there, always doing her job. From Leela it is the way the world works.

They have impossible expectations of each other: Leela expects that Rodan will be able to run, and to fight, and (on rare occasions) to kill. Rodan expects that Leela will know things, and be able to understand politics, and have the patience for discussion first. There are days when they hate each other for it. There are days when it saves their lives. Most days, though, it's just normal, each expecting the other to be a reflection of themselves, and watching in amazement when they reach and surpass those demands.

They are absolutely, completely, head-over-heels in love with each other. This is variously surprising, terrifying, and the only sane point in a world always changing.

Because if there's one thing Leela has taught Rodan (and there isn't, she's taught the Gallifreyan so much, so many impossible wonderful things, but if forced to pick one, it would be this), it is that they can change the world, they can make things better, and they can start with one small crying child and turn that child's life around completely.

They aren't fighting for planets, or civilizations, or governments.

They're fighting for people.

And they love it.


The first planet, the first proper planet they land on (they'd already visited two space stations and an asteroid, but those weren't quite the same), Rodan has a fight with Leela.

It isn't their second fight, or their third, they are both too opinionated for that, but it starts with Leela stepping out of the TARDIS, taking one look at the natives surrounding them, and saying, "You must change."

Rodan looks at Leela, looks at the natives, looks at her Patrex robes, and shakes her head. "Why?"

Leela blinks confusedly. "Your clothes are not suitable for this planet."

"And?" Rodan says slowly, pulling at her sleeves so they cover her wrists.

Leela shifts from foot to foot, staring at the natives. "This planet has fine hunts, I can sense it." She tugs at her skins. "Your robes – they will not work for hunts."

Rodan is tired. She'd spent the previous sixteen hours trying to coax their TARDIS into landing somewhere, anywhere with firm ground and a breathable atmosphere. She's not entirely sure why he's sulking now, but he is, and it might have made more sense to take a break midway, but it was one of those problems that always seems just on the cusp of completion, and so she kept working, and working, and working, and now all she wants is a bed and her partner and four uninterrupted hours. "I won't be hunting," she snaps, and then for some reason keeps talking. "I thought that was your thing."

Leela bristles – though honestly, it is only noticeable to Rodan, who has made a life out of reading Leela's emotions. "I am trying to make you feel welcome," she says, voice shaking, and it takes Rodan a moment to recognize the emotion there: it is neither exhaustion nor anger, but fear.

"What are you afraid of?" Rodan asks, stepping out of the TARDIS and closing the door behind her.

It is the wrong question. Leela's face stills, and her eyes defiantly meet Rodan's. "Nothing. A warrior is afraid of nothing." With that, Leela turns her attention to the natives.

Rodan is hurt, and a little afraid herself, but does not know the words to lower Leela's defences. She remains quiet as Leela negotiates their entry into this culture, trusting her partner to have a better idea of how these primitive species work. She remains quiet, keeping her robes carefully out of the dust, as they begin the trek to the natives' camp. And she is still quiet as they are fed mostly cooked meat and wild vegetables and shown to their own hut.

"What is wrong with you?" Leela hisses when they are finally alone. She is angry, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

Rodan looks away. "This is not a fight we need to have."

Leela makes an annoyed noise but does not move. "I think it is. Do my opinions no longer count?"

"Of course they count," Rodan says, turning back. "Why wouldn't they?"

Leela is silent for a moment. "You never listen," she whispers, looking down, arms still crossed. "Not to me."

"I do!" Rodan protests, frowning. She's certain she has, at least once. But Leela never seems to want anything –

And she's a primitive anyway, she thinks, as hard as she tries to stop, they don't count.

"When?" Leela bites out, glaring at her. Rodan stares at her, unable to form a response. "I see."

Rodan clenches her teeth. Even after all this time with her partner, she is unused to having to communicate in words, rather than thoughts, and it takes effort to shape the phrases precisely. "What is wrong, Leela?"

Leela glances away, glowering at the floor. "You would do better to be in skins, like me."

"I would not," Rodan says, trying to catch her eyes again. "Leela – these robes are like your skins. They are important to me."

There is a pause, and then Leela huffs. "You did not notice."

Rodan blinks, slightly thrown by this. "I didn't notice what?"

"I spent all of the meal," Leela spits out, "ne- nego- talking with the shaman. He wanted to have you burnt, for wearing the invaders' clothes."

Rodan has to swallow, at that, and choke back the emotions she does not know how to show. "Oh."

Leela is shaking now, and refusing to look at her. "The TARDIS showed me. The invaders here wear robes, like yours. You should have listened."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Rodan takes a half-step towards Leela. "I would have listened to you –"

Her head is down, her hands clench tightly on her upper arms. "Would you have?" Leela says quietly.

Rodan freezes. Because the answer is no, no she wouldn't have, she would have ignored Leela's words and continued on as normal. Her clothes are important to her, the last vestiges of a society she still is not sure she should have left.

Leela's breath comes rapidly. "You want to go back."

She doesn't have an answer. Yes, she wants to go back, this is all new and strange and there is dirt everywhere and she doesn't have the experiences needed to process it properly. No, she doesn't, because Leela is here and she loves Leela more than she can express. It is a muddle in her head that she has no hope of sorting out. "Yes," she says finally, quietly. "I do."

Leela chokes silently, shoulders heaving. Then she spins, fist lashing out and striking the tent-post. "Why did you come at all?"

"I want to stay more," Rodan says, hoping that she can fix this somehow.

There is a long, hearts-wrenching moment where Leela does not move. "Is this truth?"

Rodan takes a moment to just breathe, trying to control herself, trying not to hope. "Yes. It is."

Leela turns, eyes red, and brushes hair back from her face. "Show me."

She does. Her hands touch Leela's face and she whispers, "Contact." Their minds brush, Rodan showing all of her messy, complicated, indescribable emotions. She wants to stay, she wants to go home, she is unsure where home is but Leela must be there, it is a contradiction in terms, a paradox that the Time Lords would be unsure how to unravel.

Leela tenses at the flow of information, and then reciprocates. She wants to stay with Rodan forever, but not as a pet, never as a pet, and she would not have Rodan limit herself. She does not know how to make Rodan happy, but she wants Rodan to be happy, and so she worries, worries that Rodan is not happy, that Rodan is hurting herself to make Leela happy, and the very idea of that comes out of Leela's brain tinged with disgust and revulsion.

There is a moment when they stare at each other, minds still connected. "Are you happy?" Leela asks softly.

Rodan leans her forehead against Leela's. "Yes."


Things are simpler after that.

Occasionally Rodan tries new clothes. Sometimes they are related to where they land, more often they're not. Once they wear each other's clothes for a day. They accomplish nothing, but laugh a lot, and the experiment is marked as a success. After a while, Leela begins to experiment as well. Her choices are more limited and predictable than Rodan's (military uniforms, camouflage gear, clothing from a hundred cultures that Rodan used to call "primitive" and now calls "different"), but the point is still made – they will never survive this if they cannot change.

Leela experiments with cooking, aided by their inquisitive TARDIS. Rodan tries once, and then is banned from the kitchen. Even she can't explain how she managed to mix up pepper and gunpowder, but the resulting explosion destroyed the primary kitchen. Some days they eat wherever they've landed, and some days they eat Leela's experiments, but most days they eat from the replicator, which at least is decent, if a bit limited.

They spend a fun day (or what their TARDIS calls a day, which may not be the same thing) redecorating him, looking through all the themes for his console room and playing about with their bedroom. The next day, they wake up and the hallways have turned neon; Leela laughs and returns most things to their original state. Their bedroom remains the same, however.

One day they land on Earth, at a place called a "dude ranch" and they both learn how to ride horses. The next, Rodan manages to circle them around a temporally-volatile rift and she teaches Leela how to capture and ride vortisaurs. To no one's surprise, Leela is better than her at both of these, but this doesn't stop Rodan from trying to keep up.

K-9 is always there too. During redecorating, he stays attached to the console, tail cranking happily as he communicates with the TARDIS hardware. At the "dude ranch", he terrifies the other dogs, and utterly confuses the humans. The vortisaurs are bemused by him, and one attempts to attack him, which leaves the console room stinking of artron energy and scorched flesh. Often he goes on their adventures, sticking next to one of them, providing intelligence and occasional advice.

They are a team, and things are, if not simple, at least functional.