A/N:
Summary: Phennea tries to get information out of Rose
Notes: Very short chapter today. I literally only got 30 minutes to write today, so this was all I could pull out in that time. Is it rushed? Maybe, but it was a little bit of a tough one to make work ... so many factors to - ehm - factor in.
And why, you ask, did I only have 30 mins? Well, I did originally have a couple of hours, but my desktop blue screen of deathed me after one and a half hours of writing and I hadn't hit save at any point within that one and a half hours, therefore I lost the whole damn lot of it.. I had to try and remember what I wrote ... and failed miserably at it.
Blue screen of death .. I thought they got rid of that in the 90's!
Warning, it gets gross at the very end there. If you aren't one for blood and stuff, I recommend missing the last maybe five chapters or so?
psst: Action isn't quite my forte, but I am trying. Be kind.
I hope you enjoy ... and yes, despite how utterly hopeless and ridiculous it is right now, I do have a plan in place. Know that. It's not quite as crazy as it looks. Well, it is crazy, sure ... but ... oh, whatever...
~~oooOOOooo~~
If there was one thing that Rose Tyler did not believe in, it was the power of hypnotism. In her youth and on school trips, she'd been to many magic shows that involved at least one hypnotist in their lineup. Adorable as she was when she was a wide-eyed youngster, she found herself hand selected by the show's organisers as one of the people who would end up on stage during the performance. The selection was always made before the show started by a suit-wearing individual who would pull her aside with an invitation to become part of the show. Inside the rather skeevy invitation there was almost always a warning that she should make sure that she played along with what the entertainer asked her to do while under his "influence". If she was a good girl and played along, then she'd receive a bag of prizes on her way out.
As an Estate girl who would never be able to afford a T-Shirt or a hat from the souvenir stand, the offer of a bag full of kit was a good enough incentive to toe the line and be an actress for a little while. Even if some of the things she was ordered to do onstage were downright embarrassing.
So that meant: when it came to people making claims of prowess in the field of hypnosis, Rose would feel herself more than confident enough to roll her eyes and tell them they were full of shit… or she would play along with it for a while – just to see what she could get out of the encounter for herself.
In this instance, it was information. She was pretty sure that the Doctor's Ex was up to something nefarious, and while the Doctor himself might not have indicated to her that he felt anything was awry, her wolves definitely did. She trusted those two big fur-babies implicitly. If they didn't trust someone, there was usually a very good reason for it. She'd made the decision almost the moment they returned to the house that she would work out what this woman's deal really was. She wasn't quite sure just how she was going to find just what the deal was, just that she was going to figure it out.
So when Phennea interrupted Rose's defense of Braxiatel with the claim that she'd put her under a hypnotic trance , Rose took that opportunity. She was practiced enough to know that all she had to do to keep up the charade was to keep her eyes wide and unfocused and her body stiff as it awaited instruction.
Rose tried hard to maintain a zombie-like posture and expression as Phennea bragged about her skill in the hypnotic arts. She wanted to laugh and call her on her bullshit. Oh, wouldn't that be fun? But instead, she opted to make Brax proud of her by snaffling him some intelligence.
"Right," Phennea said after a moment of bragging. She leaned down to look into Rose's eyes. "You are going to tell me everything you know about the Resistance against Rassilon. All of it. You're also going to tell me all about what makes you so special that makes my greatest ancestor want you taken alive." She then drew in a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. "And finally, you're going to tell me how I can reach Gallifrey from here. I need to report in, and I can't seem to find a way to breach the dimensional walls from here. Which one of those capsules will give me the ability to contact Rassilon?"
Rose drew in a deep breath. "What I know about the Resistance against Rassilon…" She drew in a deep breath and swayed just slightly. "Is that there isn't a resistance against Rassilon. The house of Lungbarrow respects and admires his Supreme Lord President Rassilon."
"That's a lie," Phennea hissed out.
"I am under your control," Rose reminded her. "I cannot lie."
Out of the corner of her eye, Rose noted a shift in the doorway, a silent, slender figure in tan. There was a small glint of light off the blade of a knife, and although Leela moved within the bright lights of the kitchen, she may as well have been stalking her prey under the curtain of night.
Rose tried hard not to shift her eyes to follow Leela's movement at all, but she did lift a finger up from the counter to let her know that she was much more in control that it appeared. From the closed doors of the medical capsule, Leela gave a slow nod of her head. She held her knife in her hand with the blade tucked up against her wrist in readiness to strike if necessary.
Phennea had completely missed the silent movement of the huntress in the room. Her own frustration tunneling her focus toward Rose rather than the room around her. "How can you tell me there isn't a Resistance party here in your home? The brother's Lungbarrow have long been considered members of the movement."
"Your information is incorrect," Rose answered in an emotionless tone of voice. "Praised be our Lord President."
"You're a human," she snapped petulantly with a roll inside her eyes. "How dare you praise the leader of my people." She lifted her chin and leaned down forward over the counter. "And how about you, then? What makes you so special, so remarkable, that my Ancestor is so keen to have you brought to him?"
"I'm human," she answered simply. "Nothing more special than that."
Phennea let out a huff. "Rassilon despises your kind."
"Rassilon despises his own kind," Rose offered emotionlessly.
Phennea's eyes flicked quickly toward her. "The sons and daughters of time are his people, and he loves them," she corrected. "It is the likes of your mate and his brother who despise their own people." A smile crossed her features at that moment. "And speaking of…"
Rose waited with unfocused eyes as Phennea levered herself upward and shot a look to the hallway door. Seeing it clear she looked back to Rose and slid a knife from the wooden butcher's block at the end of the counter. "Your beloved. Your mate. The one your heart beats for." She held the very end of the knife's handle in her fingers to have the very tip of the blade pointed upward. "Kill him." Her grin darkened. "And make sure you look into his eyes as you do it. Through every remaining regeneration he has left, let him watch you kill each and every one of them. Break his hearts as you pierce them with this knife."
That seemed to be just about the limit for Leela's patience. As Rose shifted a slow and furious gaze toward the woman, Leela made her approach. She moved from the doors of the capsule, and twisted smoothly around the table and chairs in between without making a sound. So smooth was her approach that there wasn't even a shift in the air to herald her movement.
She spoke in a dangerous whisper against Phennea's ear as she brought her blade around her shoulder to press it against her throat. "Only a lazy coward will send in someone else to make their kill."
Phennea shorted, the knife at her throat not seeming to alarm her in the slightest. "The savage who thinks she's so sage. I'm not the one intending to take down their prey from behind."
"You are not my prey to take," Leela whispered heavily against her hear. "I am just holding you in place so that the mate of the one you wish harmed can make the kill." Her eyes shifted toward Rose. "Take vengeance for your beloved, Rose."
Phennea laughed. "She can't," she practically sang. "Your human friend is under my control. I have her in an unbreakable trace. Without me giving her instructions, she's nothing but a brainless statue."
"Am I?" Rose asked her smoothly, breaking form her stillness and flicking cold eyes toward her.
Phennea's eyes flashed wide. "How were you not affected by my hypnosis?"
"One," Rose began with a curl in her lip. "Hypnosis is bullshit. No such thing in my experience. Better people than you have tried and failed." She then shrugged. "And two. Even if you did have half a chance, my mind is protected with shields put in place by a Prydonian master of telepathy. You don't get in there if I don't want you too."
"Thete," she growled out. "Of course."
"Actually no," she corrected with a smile stretching wide across her face. "Braxiatel. A just in case protective measure when we left Gallifrey." She stepped around the breakfast counter; her eyes narrowed with fury. "And I reckon he's not going to take too kindly to you wanting to kill his brother." She paused and creased up her face as she reconsidered that. "I mean to say that you want me to kill him."
"You say that like you'll get the chance to tell him," Phennea threatened. She still held the knife she'd ordered Rose to kill the Doctor with and quietly palmed the handle.
"One call of his name," Rose warned. "Just one, and he'll be here in seconds. Him, and the Doctor."
"And do what?" she asked incredulously. "You act like their mere presence is some form of godly rescue act that will immediately save you from any disaster. Your Doctor, he hates guns, so I can't see him having any use other than trying to talk his way out of it. And Brax? He's as hot winded as Thete is. Both of them, completely useless."
Leela chuckled against her ear. "There is more to the Doctor and to Braxiatel than you see with your eyes," she warned. "I would not let my guard down with either of them."
Phennea shifted her eyes to the side in an almost condescending look toward Leela. "Might be best you don't, either."
"I do not what?" Leela asked curiously.
"Let your guard down," she answered with a whimpering whisper that twisted toward a laugh. "Particularly when you have prey who knows how to fight back."
The laughter switched to a sneer as Phennea punched her hand up into the small gap between Leela's arm and her own shoulder. She rolled and spun out of the Huntress' hold without the sharp end of her blade being able to touch at her skin. Th blade of her knife swept through the air with her turn, slicing a line across Leela's arm and spraying a line of crimson blood across the countertop.
Leela growled and ignored the pain and the wash of warm blood down her arm. She leaned low and forward, throwing her knife from one hand to the other. There was a smile of threat on her face. "I am sorry, Rose. Now, she is mine."
"Let me get Andred," Rose offered out urgently, knowing he was not only the one closest by, but also definitely the biggest. "He can help."
"I need no help, Rose," Leela said with a smile. There was barely a huff in her breath as she spoke. "And now, Assassin. Assassinate me."
A loud shuffle sounded from the living room. There was a growl and then a thump, then the tikka tikka of sharp extended claws on ceramic tile flooring. Rose's eyes immediately widened as everything around her shifted toward a world of horrific slow motion. She could see each movement before it dared occur, and her mouth formed an O-shape of terror to know that she was helpless to stop any of it.
Soliarn burst through the doorway to the kitchen with a leap that kicked him off the doorframe to shoot as a white comet through the air toward the two women.
Leela was thrown backward with another strike of Phennea's blade, this time across her hip. She dropped into a spinning crouch that brought her own knife downward into Phennea's thigh and dragged up toward her hip. As Phennea let out a cry and attempted to rush foreward toward Leela, her knife raised in the air to strike, a strong set of glistening white teeth clamped down around her wrist. The knife was immediately released and fell with a loud clatter to the ground. When she saw the blue white claws of her wolf turn red as they forced Phennea to the ground, Rose let out a shriek.
She had no idea which name she called, if it was a cry for Soliarn to stop, for Andred, Braxiatel, or the Doctor…
…It wouldn't have mattered which name it was. In no time, they'd all be there.
~~oooOOOooo~~
Irving Braxiatel admired his reflection of the floor to ceiling mirror in his room as he fastened the buttons down along his chest. Still only partially put together for now, he had procured himself a fresh outfit of a pair of black trousers and a crisp lime-green oxford shirt with deep green vertical pinstripes. Even if he did say so himself, he was looking pretty damn suave right now.
It may have had a lot to do with the glow in his cheeks and the rise in his shoulders that came from taking his beloved mate to her absolute peak. Proudly, he could say that he had levitated her so high above her own expectations that she could see the whole of eternity below them.
Not bad for a man who had just discovered the joys of physical mating…
He couldn't shift his smile as he dropped his eyes to his cuffs and slipped the small button through to fasten them.
"Braxiatel?"
His smile dropped just slightly. Oh, she was back to Braxiatel now – not even bothering to build to it with Brax as the middle ground. That meant she wanted to talk about something he quite likely didn't want to discuss right now. He tried not to show his shift in mood and didn't look back at her as he focused on closing off the cuff of his other sleeve.
"Yes, Romana?"
"Where have you been these past several weeks?"
He let out a breath, swallowed thickly, and then drew in a breath. He still didn't look at her, instead he undid his trousers to tuck in his shirt. "Giving you your space," he answered somewhat coolly. He lifted his head back to the mirror to watch himself tuck in his shirt. "And running a couple of errands."
"Meeting up with your future selves you mean," she corrected from where she still lay on the bed.
"Actually, no," he stated. "As I have no future selves ahead of me, I can quite honestly tell you that no, I have not met a future me."
"Past, then?"
He smiled and shook his head as he looked down to fasten his trousers. "No. I haven't physically met with any of my past or future selves. Not in a very long time." He finally looked toward her but didn't walk toward the bed – despite her naked form still very much on display to him. His breath did catch and softened. "Not since Pandora."
She winced at the reminder that name held to her but didn't let that sway her from climbing off the mattress and make a slow walk toward him. "Can you promise me that, Brax? Do you vow to me that you have not been crossing your own timeline in search of whatever it is you're looking for right now?"
His eyes lowered to her bared chest as she approached an he inhaled a breath of reverence. "By the stars, you are magnificent, Romana."
"Don't change the subject," she warned him sharply. She then flicked her finger upward in an order for him to lift his eyes. "And look up here, thank you. I rescind your permission to look at me."
"Do you now?" he asked with a narrowing in his eye. "And yet you bare yourself to me completely like a goddess. Tempting every desperate and infatuated part of me…"
"Not so desperate and infatuated that you aren't willing to walk away from it," she pointed out flatly. "You took both of us to climax only five microspans ago, Brax, and you're already dressed and ready to leave."
He shifted his head forward to kiss her cheek. He let out a disappointed breath when she turned away from him so that he only managed to kiss at the air beside her ear. "I do have something that I have to attend to," he assured her firmly. "Something that I was supposed to see to this evening …" he exhaled and looked back at his own reflection. "Before I found myself in the position of having to return here."
"You say that like it's a chore to be with us," she challenged him.
"There are days it is," he huffed out.
"Braxiatel!" She seemed genuinely hurt by that comment. "How could you say such a thing?"
He turned and cupped his hands around her head, holding her with tender firmness while he stroked his thumbs along her cheeks. "Not you, Romana. By the Gods above you are the only calm I have in this existence. My light. The beat of my hearts." He took a step in toward her, drawing her up against his chest. He loomed over her by a good foot, and he lowered his head to touch his forehead to the top of her hair. There was relief in him when he felt her arms move around his hips. "You are the better part of me, my beloved."
"Then stay," she insisted firmly. She lifted her chin to look up into his eyes. Her voice shifted toward the tone she would use in the capitol when any one of her councillors dared upset her and she had to issue demands to all of them. "I won't allow you to leave me tonight. You will remain here, in my bed, in my mind, in my soul, and curse you Irving, inside my body as well."
"Is that a demand, my Lady President?" he purred with a smile.
"It's my request," she breathed out. "As your mate."
"Your wish is my command," he vowed with a smile and a dip of his head to claim her mouth tenderly.
He barely had a moment to dip low and drop an arm around her bottom to pull her legs up and around his hips and there was an horrific sound from downstairs.
"That's Rose," Romana said quickly. She dropped her legs from his waist and rushed to the end of the bed to retrieve her robe. "Something's wrong. Get the Doctor and see what's going on. I'll shield the children."
Braxiatel immediately moved toward the door. He flung it open with a hard flick of his hand and burst into the hallway. He was met by the Doctor, dishevelled, barely awake and in only a pair of pyjama pants and a wrinkled grey undershirt at the door.
"Was that Rose?" the Doctor asked with mild disorientation as he fought against the last remnants of a deep sleep.
There was another panicked and desperate yell from downstairs, and neither man questioned it further. The both of them leaped down multiple steps at a time, then vaulted over the bannister. The sharp and zinging metallic scent of blood, both Gallifreyan and Human, assaulted their senses before they'd made it halfway down the hallway.
"Heaven's no," the Doctor managed to mutter out with mild calm. Any calm he had in him evaporated into complete panic when both he and Braxiatel made it into the kitchen.
Deep orange-scarlet fluid pooled on the floor, crimson streaks marked the breakfast bar and counter. Leela and Rose, both of them wearing far too much of orange-scarlet and crimson fluids, battled with a relatively stain-free Andred to hold back the blood-stained wolf who fought against them to resume his attack on a gurgling, twitching, and whimpering figure on the floor.
"Soliarn!" The Doctor's voice boomed loudly, full of heavy order that dared the wolf to defy him. "Stand down."
The wolf looked toward the Doctor and snapped a hard shattering snap of his jaw in response. It was clear that he wanted to continue on task, but he did as ordered and took a step backward. He remained close, however, ready to attack again if necessary. His huffing and snarling were a clear message to the Doctor: forget your demands, he was here to protect the ladies of Lungbarrow and Redloom.
The Doctor and Braxiatel coughed out identical sounds of shock and terror at the sight of Rose and Leela wearing an obscene amount of blood on the both of them.
"What in the name of Rassilon, Omega, and the Other happened here?" Braxiatel bit out with anger in his question. He pointed to the figure still gurgling on the floor. "And who is that?"
Rose dropped onto her ass directly in the centre of a bloody puddle and dropped her forehead into her bloody palm. She drew in a couple of breaths and waved her hand around the carnage as though .. it was just another day.. She looked up at him with tired eyes lined with amber tears. "You missed your coming home party, Brax." Her mouth started to turn downward, but then quickly levelled out to neutral. She even forced a smile. "Surprise."
~~oooOOOOooo~~