A/N: No animals were harmed in the writing of this chapter... Any hurt you read is purely fictional.
Let me just throw this disclaimer in here.
TRIGGER WARNING: If you have a problem with an animal becoming injured in the course of performing a duty, then be forewarned before heading into this chapter, and don't head forward. Tiallu does not make it out of this chapter completely unscathed... But please remember, she's Gallifreyan, she'll be okay...
Quick one today... Had to get us to the next step toward the closure of this arc.
Again: Warning: Injured animal ahead. I can't stress that enough...
Don't hate me, please.
~~oooOOOooo~~
The thing that Rose Tyler had to admit about a Pilbara day is that night fell pretty damn quick. It honestly felt as though the sun fell faster in this part of the world than anywhere else. Five minutes ago, she was seated upon a swing in a small park watching a sunset that took her breath away. Five minutes ago she wiped a tear of awe from her eye and swooned at the wash of brilliant colours across the sky as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. Now, it was almost a pitch black sky. It was so dark that she could actually feel its weight upon the land; covering her, and everything around her, in a thick blanket of heavy warmth and darkness.
Gallifrey wasn't like this at all. A Gallifrey night was a dark orange, almost brown, and rather than a heavy weight upon her, it was more a sense of ease, uplifting the pressure of the day to breathe easy at night.
The heavy silence was another thing as well. During the day here, the skies were filled with the raucous cries of cockatoos and galah birds in the sparsely planted trees around the town. Nothing at all pleasant about that, if she was being honest. Rather shrill and annoying, really, much like a pair of cats fighting in the streets in London … or the annoying screeches of the Tafelshrews int the grasses as they fought over a meal at the Magnolia orchard back on Gallifrey.
Any of the activities of the day in this little town were farily well extinguished by the cover of night, it seemed. There was zero sound, zero light, and zero movement at all – even through she was inside a park in the middle of town.
Perfect, really, for her to sit with nothing but her thoughts and a tired wolf as company. Tiallu, bless, she could sense Rose's upset, and therefore remained a silent sentinel. This was a vast difference to her usual form of companionship, which was excited huffing and jumping around her looking for attention. Tonight, she merely snuffled around, sniffing at the grass and the air, and leaving her mistress to her own thoughts. Occasionally, the snuffled at Rose's knee in a gentle askance of "Everything okay?" but other than that, she was content to just pad around or lie on the grass.
Rose was thankful for that as she lightly kicked her feet on the red gravel pit underneath the swing to lightly put herself in motion: forward and backward, and forward again. Occasionally, she'd have to stop her swing and readjust her seat. This swing was not designed with an adult woman in mind, and so the chain bracket did rather effectively bite into the soft malleable flesh of her hip, much more meaty since carrying and delivering a child for her husband – such were the sacrifices of having children.
The Doctor claimed not to mind at all that she did have a few more curves now since having Mark. He claimed that there was so much more to grasp onto when they made love and fooled around … That he loved it. He also loved each and every one of the cursed stretch marks that had appeared not only on her belly, but on her thighs and bum as well. So much so that he refused to remove them despite having the perfect means to do so. No. Instead he took time in kissing each and every one of them, all the while thanking them for his child.
It was remembrances like this that reminded her just how incredibly loved she was by the old fool. Oh, she knew beyond all doubt that the Doctor loved her with every fibre of his being. She didn't question that at all. He gave her no reason at all to ever doubt it. He let her know constantly that she was loved, both by speaking the words, and with physical affections…
…Affections they hadn't yet engaged in since reuniting this afternoon. Aside from a kiss, and the reaffirmation of their bond immediately after reuniting, they'd not touched each other at all. This should have given her a clue about his state of mind toward their relationship. The Doctor loved their physical relationship. He hungered it. He was quite frankly the initiator for pretty much all of their physical intimacy. For him not to have taken her into their room on the TARDIS the moment that Mark had gone down for a nap should have been telling.
Her brow creased in regret. She could have done the same; dragged him off somewhere to complete their connection in the most intimate of ways, but she didn't. she was more concerned with making sure that they started work immediately on trying to trace the paths of the Family of Blood to try and protect the Human Doctor. She believed herself to be acting selflessly in that moment, but in reality she'd been quite selfish; more concerned about her own need to be heroic than his need to reconnect.
And both curse and bless him at the same time, he was more concerned with making sure she was happy. No wonder he was feeling insecure when she was more concerned for his elder self than she was with his panic at his family being missing. She'd pretty much thoroughly enjoyed being back out in the Universe's wilds again, he had been back home stressing and panicking.
To add to that, two weeks for him versus three days for her. Right. Okay. She didn't know that, but it was hardly an excuse.
"Oh Doctor,' she breathed out softly in regret. "I'm so sorry."
Below her, Tiallu lifted her head and gave a supportive whoomph.
"I'm a horrible person aren't I, Sweetheart?" she asked as she stepped off the swing and stooped to scratch the wolf behind her ears. "I didn't even try to assure him, did I?"
No, she'd just gotten angry and defensive, completely offended at the suggestion that she may have taken off deliberately. Oh, but she had the right to be offended, but not so much sp that she should dismiss him so readily.
She walked and ran her hands through her hair, holding it off her face with a clutch tight enough for it to pull painfully at her scalp. She kept that hold firm and looked down toward her wolf, who had risen to her feet and was now doing an entire body shake into a stretch.
"We should go back," she told her companion. "I need to make sure he knows that he's my entire universe. Leave him no doubt about it."
Rather than a whoomph of total agreement with her, Tiallu pulled back on her haunches and let out a low and threatening growl. Rose shifted quickly at her wolf's warning. She moved to Tiallu's side and spun to face the direction in which she was levering her threat.
"What's wrong, girl?" she asked worriedly.
Tiallu took a few careful steps forward, only enough to be able to step in front of Rose. She then fell low again and continued to growl.
Rose took note of the white shine in Tiallu's fur flare into an almost luminous light blue colour. The fur over her shackles were high, almost straight up to attention. Intense worry immediately coursed throughout her body in response. Whatever had captured Tiallu's wrath, it was something to be feared. She hadn't seen her this threatening since the Daleks several years ago.
"Who-Who's there?" she asked with as much courage as she could muster. Her eyes flicked to her left, and to the end of the street, the direction of where the TARDISes – and her Doctor – were waiting for her. "I'm warnin' you, I-I'm not alone."
Steve stepped out from the darkness. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he approached to give her a tut and a tsk. "Wow, Rose," he said with a light laugh. "Timid little thing, aren't you?"
Rose let out a long breath of relief to see that it was only him. "Sorry, Steve," she laughed out. "City kid, remember. Always a little apprehensive when it's dark out." At her thigh, Tiallu continued to growl and snarl. She dropped her hand to scratch at her head and reassure her that she was safe. "Stand down," she said softly. "He's not a threat."
Mary appeared behind Steve. Her eyes were gaunt and her gait uneasy. She leaned a hand against a steel-pipe structure that resembled a skeleton of a stage coach. Her eyes dropped to the wolf. "Not really the friendly sort, is she?"
"Protective," Rose assured her. She dropped into a crouch beside the animal and tried to calm her worth soft words and pets. "I'm safe, Tiallu. Really. You know these people, we all went camping together, remember?"
Mary continued keeping her distance, seemingly needing to hold onto the structure to maintain her own balance. She looked toward Steve. "The animal will obviously make this difficult."
Still in a crouch beside her wolf, Rose looked up quickly. "Make what difficult?"
Steve shot Mary a sharp glare, but softened that expression into friendliness when he looked back at Rose. "Nothing nefarious," he answered with a shrug. "We were going to ask you to join us for a few drinks at John's flat." He looked at the wolf. "But she's not invited."
Rose's eyes flashed briefly. Tiallu was still in a warning hunch. "Is the invitation extended toward Jack and Martha?" she asked with a narrowing of her eyes as guardedness moved in in response to Tiallu's obvious warning.
Steve's head tilted to one side. "No," he drawled out carefully. "John was very specific that he wanted just you to drop by."
"And the two of you," Rose pointed out "Or did you want me to believe that he sent you guys to just come get me?"
"If you're willing to believe that, then sure," Steve said with a wide grin. "We're your escort party."
Tiallu's continuing growls brought about worry and suspicion within her. Nothing about this seemed right at all. For her own sense of security Rose touched her hand to her wrist wanting to feel the gold band that the Doctor had given her, to give herself assurance that she was still safe from discovery and that she was hidden.
Dread filled her completely when she couldn't feel it there.
"You know what," she managed out. "I have a child and a very protective husband waiting for me at home, and I really should get to them."
"Curious," Steve said darkly as he walked around her, careful to stay out of reach of the wolf that was walking around Rose to follow his movements. "That you are clearly the mate of a Time Lord – you absolutely reek of one - yet you have a human husband and child." He hummed and looked toward Mary. "One-sided mating bond, perhaps?" He chuckled. "Not unheard of. When a Time Lord wishes to mate with a Human who can't speak his language to reciprocate the bond request. He's locked in tight with his essence wrapped around her, but she's none the wiser to it."
"Oh,' Mary sang out. "That makes this even more delightful. Not only will it release the Time Lord, it'll break him, too. Make him so much easier to handle."
Rose's brows creased tightly. This had gone from zero to one hundred in record time. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she ventured. "Time Lord? Mating bond? I don't even know what where to start in how ridiculous that is."
He leaned in and sniffed, exhaling with a shudder of pleasure toward her scent. "Oh, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."
"I'm beginnin' to wonder if you do," she snapped in reply. Her hand clutched tightly at Tiallu's fur. "Whatever drugs you're on, you might want to lower the dose a bit." She needed to get a message to the Doctor, to Jack, to Martha, to anyone…
"So that said," Steve said with a smirk. "You'll need to come with us."
"I don't need to do anything," she snarled in reply, trying hard for courage to rear up and keep her safe. "But you need to back of with being this creepy and sober up somewhere." If she thought really really hard and begged for help, would the Doctor feel it across their bond?"
Mary pushed off the steel structure and rushed forward. There was a sneer in her lip as she pushed Steve off to one side and lurched forward to grab Rose. Tiallu lunged at her. With her sharp claws extended and a growl that shuddered Rose deep inside her soul, the wolf sank claws and teeth into the arm of their attacker.
Mary screamed as the Wolf's attack tore the flesh from her arms.
"Tiallu!" Rose cried out with horror. She clutched at her fur in an attempt to pull her back. "Stop! That's enough!" She looked down the street, wondering if she should run, get the Doctor, but no, she couldn't leave her wolf – not when she was about to kill someone…
…even if they were quite likely a really very evil nefarious type of person.
The snarling, growling, and tearing of clothing continued on. She felt there was no longer a choice. She needed the Doctor's intervention. She spun to launch into a run and collided heavily against Steve's chest. She let out a yelp of surprise and fright as he fumbled to put his arms around and capture her.
"Get away from me," she yelled as she stumbled backward in an attempt to escape.
Immediately, Tiallu tore herself away from Mary and launched into a run toward Steve. She leapt high, her claws bared, and dove into his chest. She snarled a filthy growl through wide open jaws.
"Enough!" Steve yelled. He picked up a sharp jagged stick from the ground and sliced his arm through the air to strike heavily into the wolf's shoulder. He snarled a smile at the sharp pained cry that burst out of the beast as she hit the ground.
Rose called out her wolf's name in absolute horror and rushed forward to try and help her, but instead found herself captured in strong, bloody, female arms. Instinctively she called out to her Husband, desperately hoping he could hear.
The terrified call of the Doctor's name lifted the wolf from where she lay. Despite having a thick stick hanging out of her shoulder, she limped into a launch again toward Steve. Her jaw was wide open and ready for attack. Her claws hit into Steve's chest to throw them both backward onto the grass. Before Tiallu could snap her jaw around his throat, he opened his mouth and huffed out a cloud of green mist into her face. Instantly all of the fight within her evaporated, and the wolf fell off to one side, her eyes closed and her body still.
Rose's fight flew from her as well, replaced by despair that her beloved wold had just been killed. She let her legs collapse, which dropped her from Mary's grip, and crawled across the grasses toward her pet.
"No no no," she peppered out with horror. "What did you do to her?" she asked in a quiet voice as she tired to reach out to her wolf. Her beautiful white girl, covered in bright red blood and lying still and silent. "You killed her," she wept out quietly. She lifted her head to look at Steve. "You killed her!"
"Damn thing deserved it," Steve snarled in reply as he wiped long strokes of his hands down his arms and walked toward Rose. He grabbed a firm hold of her shirt and hauled her to her feet. "And if you'd come along quietly, she'd still be alive."
She looked at him through her brows with red rimmed, soaked eyes filled with anger. "You're going to pay for that."
He hummed and shrugged as he blew a breath of green into her face. He caught her as she fell, holding her only by her shoulder. "Gimme a hand, sister of mine," he ordered sharply. "We've got to get her in place before we can collect the Time Lord."
…
It wasn't too long, maybe only a handful of minutes, before Tiallu was finally able to draw in a deep breath. Silence now surrounded her. She was unable to move. She stretched out her throat, held her jaw tight and exhaled her breath in a long, haunting howl.
~~oooOOOooo~~
