A/N:

Summary: Things are messy...

Notes: Got a wee bit more time today than I had hoped - but still not quite enough to really get down and dirty here.

This is a chapter that probably should come with warnings. It's not entirely pretty.

It does involve a non consensual telepathic encounter, so if this isn't your thing, i'd caution against reading at about the three-quarter mark. Please don't hate the Doctor, yeah? I mean, okay, it's not the first time he's done something like this. not in the slightest, not at all... but people in the fan fiction world do seem to be a little sensitive to this particular topic... So do be warned.

I really hope you enjoy this. Now I can head into something else entirely... you know, where I've been wanting to go since monday before I wrote myself into a hole I had to dig myself out of. Sighhhhh.

~~oooOOOOooo~~

The Doctor looked toward his bloodied wife with a horrified and perplexed contortion in his features. The scene before him had stilled him in place but not quite frozen him completely. To see her seated in a pool of blood and speaking of it in such a nonchalant manner, well that rooted him to the ground and made him completely immobile.

Braxiatel wasn't rendered as immobile as his brother. With incensed fury creasing his typically smooth features, he took a long stride toward the medical capsule and whacked hard at it with the butt of a curled fist. "Phiroi!" he demanded in a voice demanding no argument. "Better get out here."

He walked back toward the mess and set his hands on his hips to loom down over both Leela and Rose. It took some effort, but he managed to rein in a bit of the anger within him with a couple of very deep breaths through his nose. "Does any of that blood belong to either of you?" he asked with a strained voice.

Rose looked up at him looming high over her. She felt no sense of intimidation from him at all, but she didn't like him towering up there like that. She drove a finger into the ground in front of the fold of her legs. "You wanna talk to me, Brax? Stop lording above me like you are and get down here to my level." When he didn't immediately crouch to her command, she lowered her nose and then gave it a hard wipe with the side of her wrist. The wipe of her hand had her gesture toward Leela. "She's hurt," she clarified gently. "I think she caught a couple of blades."

"I am fine," Leela assured at her side. "Surface wounds only."

"Can't believe she even got a look at ya," Rose muttered with a shrug and a slow shift of her eyes toward the bloodied woman. "Gettin' slow in your old age, Lee?"

Leela actually gave her a smile, her white teeth a shining contrast against the orange-crimson stain on her cheeks and nose. "It has been too long since I have had a worthy competitor. Blade against blade, speed against speed. I am almost unhappy that Soliarn joined the fight. We will never know who would have been the victor."

"Oh, Leela all the way," Rose said with a nod of her head and assurance in her tone. "Got no doubt about that." She looked to Andred, who appeared to be completely horrified rather than swollen with pride at his mate as she had expected him to be. "Don't you think so, Andred?"

"I just helped you both pull a 190-pound aggressive and vicious Dahrama wolf off its prey," he admitted carefully. "Right now, I don't know what to think."

"He's a big teddybear," Rose said with a tender affectionate look toward the animal. "Aren't you, baby?"

The Doctor found himself finally able to move and stepped around his brother. "How?" he asked with a broken sound to his voice. "How are you so calm about this, Rose?" He gestured to the scene. "How can you treat this like it's nothing?"

She looked up at him. "How do you want me to be, Doctor?" she asked him quietly. "Really?"

"Showing a little more emotion than you are right now, Rose!" he barked incredulously. "Something, anything more than you are right now." At his side, Braxiatel said his name with gentle warning. He sneered toward his brother, not quite registering the slowly dawning expression of fear on his face. "You can't possibly tell me that you're in any way comfortable with this."

Rose let out a short laugh. It was a sound that heralded the arrival of something dangerous within her. She spoke her husband's Gallifreyan name inside a hardening voice and waited for him to look toward her. When he finally did, she lifted her chin to him. "Just what emotion are you looking for, husband? Irrational upset? Terror? Anger?" her head slowly shook. "Do you want me to scream and wail with tantrum?" Her breath drew in deep and hard, each of the exhales through her lips a spray of spittle and glimmering amber. "Do you want me to yell at you and tell you how much I am sick of this. Sick of all of it? That I want tell each and every fucking Time Lord or Lady that I have ever met to just fuck off and leave me the hell alone?"

"Rose, please…"

"No, Doctor," she said with a laugh and a lift of her hand to tell him not to bother. "You demanded emotion. So, you will damn well stand there and take all I've got. You hear me?"

"Be wary," Braxiatel warned her tenderly. "Rose. Don't say anything you can't take back."

"Bit late for that," she said with a rueful laugh. "I just told the lot of you to fuck off and that I don't ever want to see any of you ever again, didn't I?" She pointed to the capsules hulking along her hallway. "So you know what? Take them…" She then thumbed over her shoulder. "And them, too. Take your Gallifreyan dramatics back to bloody Gallifrey and leave me the hell alone. I'm done! Done with all of it. Done with the lack of room. Done with not bein' able to even get a decent night sleep. Done with the constant interruptions. Done with all the ridiculous political bullshit of your people – bullshit I can't ever hope to actually understand due to my inferior humanness and lack of interest at all in bloody politics." She flicked her hand, firing a splatter of blood onto the Doctor's pant leg from the tips of her fingers. "Don't even like or understand British politics, why the hell would I enjoy the Gallifreyan version of it? Pompous and self-righteous bastards, the lot of you."

She leaned forward to bury her face in her hands and let out a loud and frustrated growl. Her fingers curled down over her closed eyes, her nails scraping lines along her cheeks, into fists at her chin. She clenched every muscle in her body and belched out a louder sound of utter frustration that pulled up her knees and shoulders.

"That's it, Rose," Braxiatel urged her with a smile of support as he finally lowered himself to a crouch in front of her. "Get it out, darling. Break. We can take it."

"You condescending arse," she charged him with an angry sneer. "All of you! This is all your fault! All of it. Pack it up and leave. Now! Get out and leave me the hell alone!"

"My condescending arse isn't going anywhere." He said in calm reply. He pointed his finger behind him toward his brother. "And neither is his. Nor Romana, Leela, Andred, Phiroi, or any other one of us you care about." He reached forward to cup her cheek in his hand. "You're stuck with all of us. Like it or not."

"I hate you," she growled with reply. Although her eyes were still hardened with anger, she didn't shrug from his hand. "I mean it, Brax."

"So many people feel that way about me that it's really lost all impact now," he replied with a sad smile. "And while my feelings toward you are quite beyond the opposite, my dear, I'll accept your proclaimed hatred of me and add your name to the already rather extensive list of others, hmmm?"

"She wanted me to kill him," Rose said in a small voice. "Tried to force me to do it. But I couldn't. I can't."

"I'm sorry, who and who?" he asked with a pinch in his brow. He looked toward the now very still and unrecognizable figure on the floor. "Who was she, and who did she want you to kill?"

"Phennea," she answered quietly. "She wanted me to kill the Doctor."

Braxiatel let out a swear under his breath and looked to the body on the ground. He covered his hand in his mouth and shook his head. "This is bad," he breathed out. "Very bad. You've killed one of Rassilon's descendants. This won't come without repercussions."

"I will take that blame," Leela affirmed.

"We'll all take the blame," Braxiatel corrected her. "Neither of the two of you are taking this on your own. I won't allow that."

"I will gladly take that blame alone, Braxiatel," Leela warned him. "Rose and the Doctor, you and Romana. You can not be held to blame when this … this creature… tried to use wizardry and hocus pocus to force a wife to kill her husband. To destroy your family."

"Hocus-pocus?" Braxiatel asked with a creased face of incredulity and question. "What do you mean by hocus pocus?"

She looked toward the Doctor, still in a stand behind his brother. "I have seen it used before. Back on Gallifrey, when you became President. Rodan, remember her? Pretty girl. Very clever, but also very delicate."

"You're asking me to go way back," the Doctor breathed out. "Several hundred years and a half dozen regenerations ago."

"You must remember," Leela pressed. "You did something to her, Doctor. With her eyes. You looked into her eyes and you told her that she must obey K9 and protect the key of your Lord Rassilon, and she did."

His cheek crinkled on one side to narrow an eye. "You mean hypnosis?" His face lengthened out and he shot a concerned look down toward Rose. "Did she hypnotise you?"

"Well, she tried," Rose murmured. "Didn't work, though."

"Of course it didn't," Braxiatel said with a huff. "You've got protections in place for that. I made sure of it."

Beside him, the Doctor dropped into a crouch. It was clear that he was rattled, angry and hurt, but he held a soft focus on his wife. "So, you're saying that she tried to hypnotise you into killing me?"

"After she tried to get a bit of information from me first," she answered with a shrug. "Which she got none, of course. But the two of you are in some serious trouble on Gallifrey, I hope you know," she said with warning and a flick of her finger between them.

The Doctor's shoulders heaved just noticeably. There was a solidness in his expression and a dimple in his cheek. His voice was low and quiet. "She tried to get into your mind to force you to murder me?"

"Yeah," she drawled out. She covered her face in one hand. "Wanted me to force you to watch as I stabbed you through each one of your remaining regenerations. Break your hearts while I stopped them beating, I think she said." She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "But how could I do that to you, Doctor?" She petted her chest. "This can't beat without you. Not ever again."

"I know, Rose."

"Thete," Braxiatel warned. "Shield your mate, we have an oncoming regeneration." He pointed to Andred. "Protect your wife," he warned him. "Based on the mess this has to counter off, this one will be destructive." He looked to Rose with apology. "I'll make sure everything is cleaned up and anything damaged is replaced. I swear it." He stood up quickly and rushed around to the other side of the breakfast bar to use it as a shield.

Rose didn't have time to get her arm up for help before the Doctor dipped low and circled his arm around her waist. He hauled her up against his chest and quickly guided them both around the breakfast counter beside Braxiatel. He spun them both, and then dropped back into a crouch with his back against the wooden counter that stood between them and Phennea's shimmering, glowing body. Across the room, Andred shielded a remarkably pliant Leela in much the same way with cover beside the medical capsule.

"I've got you," the Doctor promised Rose through his teeth as he prepared himself for the hot wash of the regeneration over their heads. "Just hold on to me, yeah?" He drew in a breath and added a tender afterthought. "Tight, and please don't let me go." He pressed his lips to her head and his voice was a mere breath against her hair. "Never let me go, Hearts. Please."

Braxiatel slid a look toward his brother and winced at the forlorn expression in his widened eyes as he stared to the cabinet directly ahead of him and rocked back and forth ever so gently. The hold he had on his wife with both of his arms and his legs was tight and possessive – and in some degree desperate.

He brought his fist to his forehead and dropped his head backward on the cabinet door against his back. He knew what was on Thete's mind right now, and why he seemed so utterly lost. He had no idea what they were going to do after the regeneration. It terrified him to think of what would happen and how they were going to handle Phennea. Well. He had an idea, of course. He knew what could be done, but it was something that violated several of the most stringent of all Gallifreyan laws. Oh, sure, he'd broken more than a bucketful of laws on Gallifrey and had even pushed this particular one to its very limit with Ace's temples underneath his fingertips. But he didn't know if he was capable of anything like that against a Time Lord – especially one trained by Borusa himself.

He looked toward Thete. He was trained by that Lord and even exceeded the skill wielded by the old telepathic master by the time he was in his Fourth incarnation. He was more than capable of it, but there was no way in any realm of any reality that he could count on him to do anything like that…

…There was no way he could even suggest it. Just to make the suggestion violated every one of the laws his brother had created in his own mind about it.

Three was a whoosh and a splintering crack from the other side of the counter, and he grit his teeth against the heat raging over the top of the counter.

"Someone please tell me the pies are in the fridge and not still on the counter," he muttered through his teeth in the hope to find at least a small bit of levity inside the panic. He felt a small hand curl around his and shifted his head toward Rose, who looked at him with affection and a small smile.

"Did that before I went to bed."

"You're an amazing woman," he breathed out as he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a small kiss to her knuckles.

"And you're my best friend," she said softly. "I'm sorry I said…"

He hushed her gently. "It'll take more than that to upset me." His head shot up as the bright light of regeneration dimmed overhead. He dropped her hand and lifted to a stand, being careful to be able to drop back into a crouch if necessary. He kept his hand low and flicked his fingers to let his brother know it was safe to get back up to his feet.

The Doctor cautioned Rose to wait a moment but wasn't overly surprised when she chose instead to stand up almost immediately beside him. The fact that she did so and immediately curled in against his side, her arms around his waist, gave him some comfort. He held his arm loosely over her shoulder in response to her affection.

The sight of what was once her small dining room made the three of them gape in shock. The beautifully crafted cottage-style solid wood table and its matching set of 6 chairs were in a splintered pile in the centre of the room. Her water cooler was on its side, gurgling with thick, large bubbles as it emptied itself out onto the floor and spread a thickly growing clear puddle across the floor. Where the water met the puddles of drying blood, the clash of fluids swirled and curled wetly together.

At the centre of the room, the new form of Phennea stood in a hunch. Her head was low, and her chest, barely covered by the shredded and bloody remains of her clothing heaved and panted as she struggled to catch her breath. Long, straight, blonde hair covered her face and shoulders, it's length kissed at the underside of her breasts with an curled flick of the ends. It seemed an eternity before she finally flicked up her chin and let her hair flip up off her face to fall in a perfect arch around a porcelain-skinned face. Crystal blue eyes lined with thick black lashes blinked rapidly and then opened to focus around the room. Her perfectly pouted Instagram worthy lips pursed out in a kiss at the air before stretching into a smile.

"Just when I thought she couldn't get more beautiful," Rose muttered with a curl in her lip and a close of her arms across her chest to hide herself. "She goes from a 10 to 100 in a single regeneration."

"It's only skin deep," Braxiatel reminded her quietly. "Inside she's ugly to the bone." He shuddered and then forced a bright smile on his face. "Well, look who showed up to my humble abode." He walked around the counter with a wary gait in his step. "Phenneatryithdelphirassilonmas the walking definition of debauchery and ill-repute."

Phennea looked toward him with a purr in her smile and a coy roll in her shoulder. She hummed out appreciatively. "Irving Braxiatel. The bastard son of Betrayal and dishonesty."

He hummed a tut of disagreement. "Oh, my dear girl. If I do recall it was you who personified those traits so perfectly that your image exists within the matrix database next to the definition of both."

He hid his slight shudder of fear toward her steeled look toward him as he casually leaned against the edge of the capsule. She was a dangerous woman, of that he had absolutely no doubt at all, and while he, too, had his own intensive training in the violent arts, it had been a while since he'd wielded that well hidden skillset of his.

Her newly minted eyes caught his shudder, and she smirked a smile of preening. "Yes, Braxiatel. I would be very scared if I were you."

"Don't mistake my guardedness for fear, Phennea," he warned her.

"Oh, I will," she assured him. Her eyes then shifted toward the Doctor, and the tiny blonde human that was tucked into his side. "Hello, Rose."

The Doctor snarled. "Don't you speak to her," he warned. "If you want to preen and brag about how brilliant you are and how you're not quite done yet…" his eyes darkened, as did his voice. "Then you talk to me, got it?"

Phennea snorted. "Letting the man talk on your behalf, child?"

The Doctor felt Rose's flinch, the signal that she was about ready to launch a tirade against the woman. He locked his arm a little tighter around her, a flex of his arm that pulled her closer into his side. "You won't get away with this, Phen," he managed to get out before Rose could speak.

"And what do you plan to do about it?" She queried. "I've got nine regenerations left. Plan to exhaust all of them?"

Leela stepped out from the cabinet, her blade in her hand. There was a glint of aggression in her eye. "It would be my honour to cycle you through all of them on the Doctor's behalf."

Phennea held up a wary hand toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shift of the white fur coat of the beast that managed to take her down. She shuddered at the growl in his lip and the sharp piercing warning in his eyes. She maintained a level of arrogant calm. "If Thete or Braxiatel want to kill me, Savage, then they can do it on their own." She looked toward Braxiatel, and then toward the Doctor. "Which I know for a fact neither of them are even remotely capable of doing."

"Don't be too sure of that," Brax warned.

"Interesting that you should say that," the Doctor ground out. "Considering you tried to use my wife to murder me."

"An attempted parlour trick," she answered with a sigh and a roll in her eyes. "On what should have been an inferior mind." Her eyes flicked to Braxiatel. "Who would have known that big brother installed a little bit of Time Lord software in there." There was a chuckle in her voice. "Might want to look what other part of her your brother's gotten into, Thete. He seems awfully fond of her in a more than brotherly way."

"How dare you," the Doctor snarled as he walked around the counter and made a stiff-shouldered approach.

"Don't let her get to you," Braxiatel said with a sigh. "She's looking for a rise out of you."

"Aren't I just?" she purred. "Was once very good at that, wasn't I, Thete?"

"That was a very long time ago," he countered with a sneer.

"Anyway," she said with a dismissive sigh and a roll in her eyes. "What a predicament we've found ourselves in, then." She looked between them. "Between a rock and a hard place, aren't you? So many choices of what to do from here – and not one of them benefits you in any way at all."

"I wouldn't say that," Braxiatel said with a huff.

She slouched to one side and lifted her fingers to count off their options. "You can try to cycle me through my remaining regenerations. But it will trigger a warning in the Matrix, which will head to my Grandfather." She shot him a glare. "And another one of me will almost immediately be dispatched to finish what I started, from the very location in which my last incarnation expired." She looked up. "Which is right here. Oh, curse the Matrix and it's rather brilliant temporal search capabilities."

Braxiatel swallowed hard. He couldn't argue with that. The Doctor stood still; his arms folded across his chest.

Phennea looked between the two of them. "You can try to keep me caged, but quite frankly, I am rather brilliant at escape." She blinked slowly. "And you'll spend your remaining moments with the constant fear of my appearing at the end of your bed, in your shower … in your nightmares."

"You're already there," the Doctor muttered.

"Nightmares, or your more wanton dreams, Thete?" He laughed at his cold look then pressed the length of her finger against her lips. "Shhh. I know. Your mate's here and listening. Let's let her believe that the only one who features in your dreams of mating is her."

"It wouldn't be a lie," he breathed out.

"Of course not," she purred. "Option number 3: that you kick me out of here, exile me from this house of horrors and simply let me go." Her brows crashed together. "Dangerous of you to do that, of course. Now that I know where you are, and where all of these innocent people are. I'd report back to Lord Rassilon the moment I got out of here."

Quite obviously proud of herself and the complete lack of workable options that the Doctor and Braxiatel had to work with, she smoothed down her hair and levered the younger of the two men with a dangerously aggressive look. "Which leads us to option number four of the only choices at your disposal. You hand over your mate. Without further argument. I take her back to Gallifrey with me." She angled her chin upward to look at the Doctor with an almost bored expression. "Maybe I'll let both of you live, let you keep your refuges safe. I'll tell Rassilon that arrangements were made between us. He's an honourable man, he'd abide by our … agreement."

"You're not getting her," the Doctor warned her darkly. "You will have to kill me, cycle through every regeneration I have left, to get anywhere near her."

"A challenge I'm willing to take on."

Leela stepped forward. There was a sneer in her lip. "Then you will have to take me. I will not be as easy a target as the Doctor."

"Thanks, Leela," he said with a cough.

"It is true," she said simply. "I will not lie to make you feel a better man, Doctor. You are not a hunter, nor are you a warrior."

"So, Doctor," Phennea muttered with disdain on his name. "Just what are we going to do? Your wife or your people?"

Rose walked around the counter. "Take me," she demanded urgently, going so far as to hold her wrists out as though waiting to be cuffed. "I'll surrender myself. Just don't hurt the Doctor or Brax, and please keep these people safe. My life for theirs."

Her name was sharply called by three people.

"I have to," she said with light fear in her tone. "What choice do we have?"

"Oh aren't you just a precious, brave little thing," Phennea teased.

"We have choices," the Doctor argued. He put his hands on her arms and looked into her face with an expression of pleading. "I won't let you do this. There are other things that can be done that don't involve me losing you."

"Like what?" she asked him with her brows high but crinkled together with pain. "I heard her, Doctor. She's right, there is no other way to do this. The only thing that saves you, Brax, and all these people, is me going with her." She shuddered an inhale. "My life for theirs, Doctor. It's a good and honourable way to go, yeah? Much better than boring old age."

"No," he said sharply.

"You don't have a choice in it," she corrected him. "My life, my decision."

"My wife," he snarled. "Is my life. Which makes it my decision as well." He growled an expression of frustration toward her. "And I won't let you do this."

Rose lifted her arm and circled it over the back of his neck. She pulled his face down to hers. "Then it's up to you to come rescue me, then, isn't it?" she whispered as she claimed his mouth with hers. She opened and deepened the connection immediately, fearing that this would be time she would ever be able to hold him like this ever again. Her fear and her upset filtered through their connection, and the Doctor pulled back from the kiss with a gasp.

"No," he breathed out. "Absolutely not. I won't let you do this." He breathed hard in and out through his nose and held her upper arms with a tight hold. There was a shake in his hands and his shoulders. "I won't put you in the hands of Rassilon to become his little experiment."

"Come on, Thete," Phennea ordered him. "Hand her over, and while you're at it, I need one of your capsules as well. I'm thinking Brax's old girl might work best."

"No chance in hell," Braxiatel growled. He moved toward his brother and stood facing both he and Rose with his back toward Phennea. "There is one more choice," he breathed out quietly.

"I know," the Doctor answered him.

"I can't," Braxiatel warned him. "I don't have the…"

"I know," the Doctor repeated through his teeth.

"Your mate," he pressed. "Your children's mother. The beat of the hearts inside your chest." He watched the slowly heaving chest of the Doctor as anger rose within the man. "You've just gotten her back after almost five centuries, Thete. Your wife. And you just want to let her hand herself over to Rassilon?"

The Doctor fired his brother a hard stare.

"If it was Romana," he kept on. "I wouldn't even hesitate. My life, my morals, my everything, I'd give up for her. Because I know without Romana at my side, my hearts would cease to function. I'd rather be dead." He looked him up and down with dark challenge in his eyes. "As the devoted, besotted mate of any woman would. Or are you going to admit that maybe your hearts don't beat for her in the way they should, brother?"

His eyes flashed angrily, and he thrust his arms forward to clutch fistfuls of his brother's shirt in his hands. With a hard forward shove, he walked Braxiatel toward the medical capsule walls. There was a curl of fury in his lip. "How dare you suggest that my love for my wife is anything less than it is," he charged him. "My hearts and my soul are within her."

"Then prove it," he snarled in reply. "Or don't you think she's worth it?"

The Doctor kept hold of Braxiatel's shirt but dropped his head low between his tensed and locked arms with defeat. He let out a furious and frustrated yell as he pulled hard on Brax's shirt and then shoved a hard thrust of both fists forward to shove the man away from him. He spun on his heel and stalked toward Phennea. There was a glint of determination in his eyes and a curl of disgust on his lip – although whether the disgust was toward her, himself, or the both of them, only he knew for sure.

"Forgive me," he snarled.

"For what?" she asked him hotly.

"Not you," he growled as his hands snapped up and he took a hard hold of her head. "My wife." His eyes slammed shut as his thumbs dug hard into her temples. He flared his mind wide open against hers and forced himself into a mind that was weak and still recovering from regeneration.

Rose gasped with horror at the scene before her. The Doctor was in a hunch over Phennea's slowly collapsing figure. Her eyes were blown wide, her mouth gaped, as she drew out a long cry against the Doctor's telepathic connection. She yelled to him to stop and tried to rush forward to knock them apart, but was stopped by the firm press of Braxiatel's palm against her breastbone.

"Don't," he warned her with a shake in his head. "It's done now. Leave him."

"It's not done," she argued. Phennea was now on her knees in front of the Time Lord who still towered over her, his hands still clutching tight hat her head. She looked with desperation toward the other Time Lord. "Andred!" she cried out. "You have to stop him!"

"It's the only way," he said with a shake in his head. "If it was Leela, I'd do the same thing."

"How can you…?"

"I would," he vowed with a fired look in her direction. "I'd much rather help him than stop him. There's far too much at stake here."

"Andred's right," Braxiatel agreed.

"Doctor!" she cried out as she struggled to get past Braxiatel. "Stop this. You can't. This isn't you!"

"Actually," Braxiatel corrected her gently as he wrapped his arms around her to try and keep her in place. "It is." He swayed just a bit with a stagger against her struggling. "It's all of us, Rose. Tell me you wouldn't do the same to protect him."

Her struggling shifted to defeated, light stomping, and she held at Braxiatel's arms that were looped around her waist and leaned back against his chest. "He's going to kill her."

"No, he won't," he assured against her ear. "He's just rearranging a few things, deleting a few entries. Pressing reset." He panted out and shuddered. "Killing her is a line not even Thete'll cross." He huffed out a shaking breath. "Rassilon, on the other hand…"

Rose relaxed against Braxiatel's hold and whimpered out her husband's name in pleading. She still held at his wrists with a tight grasp but was done with struggling and fighting. What was happening was happening, and all she could do was wait until it was over and hopefully support the Doctor once it dawned on him what he was driven to do.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the Doctor inhaled a deep gasp and released Phennea's head. She swayed on her knees but didn't fall or collapse in any way. More than anything she seemed disorientated and confused than truly injured in any way.

The Doctor staggered backward a few steps and, when his bare foot met with a splintered chunk of wood, stumbled backward onto his knee. His breaths were a series of deep gulps and swallows that drove him to his hands and knees. His stomach contracted with dry retches against the tile beneath him.

Braxiatel released Rose and she ran quickly toward where the Doctor was still heaving air toward the ground and struggling to draw in a breath. She wrapped an arm across his shoulder and underneath his head, drawing his face up to hers.

"I'm sorry," he panted out as he sought focus on her face. There were tears in his eyes and he looked down at his hands with a wince. "I had no other choice."

"I know," she assured him quietly. She shifted to seat herself in a straddle over his knees and tightly wrapped her arms around his head, holding his forehead in between her breasts. His arms snapped tightly around her chest.

"Thete," Braxiatel called emotionlessly from the capsule.

The Doctor turned his head and looked underneath Rose's arm toward his brother. "She's harmless to us now," he assured him with a nod of his head. He moved his head back in between Rose's breasts and slumped against her. "She may even be able to be of help when she recovers."

Braxiatel gave him a firm nod. "I'll call Narvin," he said with a sniff out. "Let him know what happened. See if he can provide interference until we can get access to her login protocols and take over where she left off."

"You do that," the Doctor breathed inaudibly against his wife's chest. "You do that."

Rose looked down at the top of his head. With a shift of her arms, she managed to get her fingers underneath his chin. "Look at me," she pleaded with him as she gently tried to lift his chin.

He looked upward and exhaled a long breath that shuddered out through his mouth. "My hearts," he whispered with a shudder, unable to finish the phrasing right now, but knowing she understood.

Rose stood up slowly and held her hand down to help him to his feet. "Come with me," she requested softly.

He took her hand but didn't use the strength of her to lift him to his feet. He managed to do that on his own. "Where?"

"To the TARDIS," she answered him with a whisper. "There's something the both of us need, and we can't get that here."

"Good idea," Braxiatel said with a flick of his hand to scoot them away. "Clean yourselves up." He looked to Leela. "And you, too. Bathroom's upstairs, towel's on the rack."

He looked around the kitchen, and the bloodied wolf, and let out a long sigh. Hell, there was a lot to be done, and very little time to do it in. "By the robe of Omega. We've got one hell of a mess to clean up and only two hours before the children wake – Looks like I'll have to wake up a residence capsule, see if we get someone to clean this mess up."

~~oooOOOooo~~