A/N:

Summary: Brax and Rose deal with the aftermath of the kiss... Leela gives Rose a bit of a pep talk

Notes: Sorry about no chapter yesterday. I struggled a bit getting into it ... and despite having a couple more hours than normal, could barely make it past the 1K word mark... Wasn't going to do that to ya.

So I left it to today instead to push out something a bit more acceptable. I do have another thousand words or so written additional to this, but I think I might save that snippet for tomorrow. It give away a bit, and I want to make sure I know how exactly to proceed if I post that bit. I'm pretty sure I do, but I want to really think on it. Those who have listened to Gallifrey will recognize the bad guy of this arc... My own spin on this...

Anyway. I do hope you like this chapter.

~~ooooOOOOooo~~

Braxiatel's words ended with silence among both the TARDIS and Braxiatel's capsule. The former Lord Cardinal never tended to overreact on anything, and so for him to seem not only spooked, but quite obviously horrified by what he'd seen, no man or woman was going to question it further. The only person who dared to speak was the Doctor, and when he did it was with a low and quiet tone of assurance and understanding.

"We'll be there in a moment," the Doctor breathed low and firm. "Communication out."

The three figures disappeared from Braxiatel's command deck with a light wheeze and pop of closing static. He dropped his head and let out a low breath.

"Brax," Rose began cautiously. There was clear and quiet discomfort and wariness in her voice. She'd never been a recipient of his ire in all of their years as friends. She'd seen her husband on the receiving end of it many more times than once, but Braxiatel was only ever softly spoken with her. To hear that voice thick and heavy with anger directed toward her; she didn't like how incredibly small it made her feel.

With Romana, the Doctor, and Phiroi within earshot, it was easy for her to puff up her chest and confidently give him a bit of snark and snip. Now that they were alone, however, that confidence had quickly fled. She swallowed around a lump in her throat and breathed out quietly. "I'm sorry. I really am. They said it was our only option to get your heart started again."

His head snapped toward her. His eyes were wide with horror. "I was down to only one?"

She nodded slowly. "Phiroi said it was the best option. I mean I disagreed, of course I did, but then Romana insisted, and the Doctor pushed for it as well." She finally looked toward him, into his surprised eyes. "The fact that both of our mates were pleading with me to do it has to tell you something, yeah?"

"Pleading?"

She dipped her head into her shoulders and rolled her eyes with discomfort. "Well. Romana was pleading – which is really really unlike her." She looked back to him. "And that properly scared me, Brax. Romana doesn't get scared, and she certainly never pleads for anything."

"You're right," he admitted softly, his eyes down on the console surface. "She doesn't." He lifted his head to look up at the rotor column. "I must have really scared her."

"And me."

He quickly curled his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. He dropped his chin onto the top of her head. "Thank you," he said softly. After an exhale he sighed in a breath. "I suppose this means that I owe you one, right?"

"Yep," she said with a pop on her P. Her confidence returned in full force and she managed a smile. "Which you can repay me by finding me a breath mint."

"A what?"

"Breath mint," she repeated with a slap of her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "So I can get the taste of you out of my mouth."

He slumped and then groaned as he released her from his hold. "And with that, there goes our moment." His eyes tightened as he watched her walk around the console away from him. "And just precisely what do you mean about eradicating my taste from your mouth?"

"You're a smart man," she countered with a shrug. "Didn't think you'd need an explanation from that. It's pretty straight forward. But because you do seem confused." She looked up and smirked playfully and pointed at her tongue before popping it back in her mouth. "Your taste: here. Need to get rid of it. A breath mint will work fine for that."

He shook his head. "Juvenile," he huffed. "You should embrace the fact that you actually got yourself a decent and passionate kiss from someone as magnificent as myself…"

"Desperate and messy more like," she responded indignantly with a rake of her eyes up and down his oxford and trouser combination. "I'd think that Mr. Magnificent here would know how to knock a girl's socks off with a hard one on the mouth." She held her hand up at her chest and twisted her palm side to side. The expression on her face was one of disappointed analysis. "On a scale of one to ten, I'll give you a three or four. You lost points when you called me Romana."

"Oh, please," he argued with a roll in his eyes and a slump in his shoulders. "Three or four… Even omitting points for the unintentional name error – which is to be expected considering Romana is my mate – I'd still be at the eight or nine point level."

"Nah," she drawled. "Too much tongue, too messy."

"Oh come on, it curled your toes," he said with a smirk. "Admit it. When was the last time Thete did that to you – or better yet, when was the last time you completely rendered him speechless with one of yours?"

"Are we really arguing about this?"

He exhaled a sharp breath, lowered his head, and rubbed at his brows. "I don't know how you do it, Rose," he managed on a low voice. "But you do turn me into an adolescent at times."

"It's a gift," she said with a shrug, looking to the side as the sound of the TARDIS' relative dimensional stabiliser heralded her materialisation inside the console deck. "Huh." She huffed out with surprise.

Braxiatel looked toward her, not at the slowly materialising TARDIS. "Yes?"

"He's landing inside your capsule?"

"Yes," he answered. "It's safer than materialising outside and having to then step outside to move across to this capsule. Is that a problem?"

"I just didn't know you could do it." She tilted her head to one side as the TARDIS fully materialised in front of her. "Though, there's plenty of room, I suppose."

"We don't often like to do it," he answered. "But when the situation calls for it, it's safe enough." His brows pinched. "Unless, of course, it's the same capsule, then you're looking at a temporally dangerous event in space and time." His eyes flared briefly. "Been there, done that…"

"Got the T-shirt," Rose offered with a smile.

"And please don't tell Romana I just admired that to you," he added on a breath with his eyes rolled to the ceiling. "She is very … oh how can I put this delicately…?"

"Anal-retentive about the rules of temporal law?"

"Yes. You could say that."

"Again, not lying for you, Brax," Rose said with a shrug. "I won't bring it up, but if she does – totally on your own with her wrath."

"Understood."

There was a creak in the hinges as the door opened. Rose half expected that the Doctor would be the first one out of her doors, but instead the two massive Gallifreyan wolves bounded out excitedly. Soliarn took off around Braxiatel's console with his head low and his nose to the ground. Tiallu bounded to her mistress and was immediately up on her hind legs to put her front paws on Rose's shoulders. She excitedly licked at her face, drawing both giggles and an ew from Rose for her efforts.

"Awww, is my sweet little girl all excited to go for a walk then? Sick of being cooped up at home with little Neroli?" She scratched at both sides of the wolf's head. "I know the feeling, darling." She tipped her head to Braxiatel. "'cept, I'm usually stuck with this one."

Braxiatel ignored Rose's dig at him. His eyes were locked on the investigative sniffing of the male. "If that thing even thinks about marking his territory or urinating in here, I'll kill him." He looked back toward Rose to make sure that she heard the threat he'd put upon the animal and found himself face to face with Romana instead. His eyes flared with surprise, but he quickly took a slight step backward to be able to give her a light bow of greeting and apology.

"My hearts," he breathed out, his hand nestled between his hearts.

"You very nearly lost one," she said quickly before he could launch into any form of ritual apology.

He lifted his head but remained in his stoop. "I very nearly did." He drew in a breath. "And while I…"

His words were cut abruptly as she grabbed his head in both hands and pulled him toward her. He swayed and stumbled awkwardly from his stoop but recovered quickly enough to accept the hard and bruising claim she made of his mouth. His arms quickly snapped around her; one arm across her lower back, the other up just underneath her shoulder blades; and he dipped her backward just slightly. He kept her firmly inside that hold until the slightest whimper escaped through her nose and then released her with a sudden gasp. Her lips were still puckered and parted after he'd pulled back, and to Rose she seemed fairly dazed and close to speechless. He smiled a petulant smirk toward Rose as he steadied Romana in place.

"Three to four, indeed," he huffed out with indignance and a lift in his nose as he walked by her. "Beat that effort…"

"Really?" she queried darkly. "Like, really? Are you actually doin' this?" she narrowed her eyes at him and set her hands on her hips. "Just how old are you again?"

"He's got to be pushing 1400 by now," The Doctor answered her, finally emerging from the TARDIS. He held a phonebook sized aged and weathered wooden box in his arms that was topped with a computer tablet, and wore a large, thick pair of horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. His eyes were on the tablet in front of him as he shifted his head left and right, and up and down. A small wolf cub followed close to his ankle, nipping and rolling at the loop of the shoelace of his Converse as he walked toward her. He then used all five digits from one hand to flick the image on the tablet as a full screen hologram against the wall. "Why'd you ask?"

"Because he's being a child," Rose murmured out slowly as she stepped up beside him and tilted her head at the display in the air – the image coming from the centre of the glasses worn by her husband.

"It's called: adaptation," Braxiatel argued with a shrug.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged and moved to stand beside Rose. "It's a key theoretical concept of your Charles Darwin. The Adaptation theory is the root concept of his theory of natural selection." His arms folded across his chest as he watched the Doctor wade through a couple of calibration exercises with his camera and video feed. "A rather basic principle that I will expect you studied at school." He drew in a breath. "Had you studied, of course."

"I'm really going to regret asking this," Rose muttered. "But just what's the Adaptation Theory of Darwin got to do with you behaving like a petulant child right now?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes in warning when Braxiatel used both hands to point at his chest, then used the same hands to gesture toward Rose. "Answer that question in the way I know you want to, Brax, and so help me you'll know what it feels like to have a Converse shoe rammed up your…."

"That's quite enough from all of you," Romana interrupted with a growl. "We have much more important things to deal with now than petty arguments and one-upmanship. She looked toward her husband and her expression fell toward neutrality. "Your brother has put together a tracking and monitoring set up for Rose, Leela, and the two wolves." She gestured toward Tiallu, who wore a harness around her chest that had a small camera mounted in between her shoulders, and then to Soliarn, who wore the same. "We also have earpieces for both Rose and Leela so that we can keep in constant communication."

"Range?" Braxiatel asked gruffly.

"They could be on the other side of the planet, and we'll still be in contact," the Doctor answered as he flicked the remaining three video feeds onto the air in front of them. "The TARDIS will be linked to both Leela and Rose's audio signal. If we need to, we can perform an immediate materialisation over the both of them…"

"Provided there isn't any interference," Braxiatel muttered darkly.

"Provided that, yeah."

Romana looked toward her husband. "Do you anticipate any interference at all?"

"I wish I could tell you for sure," he answered with a shrug. "I couldn't get close enough to make any such determination. However, we have to expect there will be some form of interference, telepathic or otherwise." He looked to his brother. "Got any contingency plans for that?"

"Immediate materialisation at the last transmission location," he answered. "I will be working on a encephalographic barrier once the ladies leave." He looked to Andred. "Modifying the one I created back on Gallifrey for you during the Vardan incident. It will allow at least one of us to venture out there and remain relatively unscathed – telepathically, that is."

"Yes, well, that one was only a partial design if I remember it right," Andred agreed with a nod. "And required some very intense focus and concentration to work adequately enough. I take it you'll use it for rescue if necessary."

"If necessary," he answered with a nod in his chin and a purse in his lips. There was a sound of displeasure from Leela at his rear. "Only if necessary, Leela."

"I hope that you will not act foolishly," she warned. "You must trust in me, and trust in your mate, or we will all fail."

"I promise you," he answered without looking back. "I will only activate rescue protocols if I feel that either one of the two of you are in too much danger…"

"Which you already feel," Romana said quietly. "I can feel your worry, Doctor, and your mate is still in the safety of the capsule."

"Which is why I am going to leave the decision to mobilise the TARDIS on your command," he said with a grit in his teeth. "If I had my way, she wouldn't be going out there at all. And definitely not without me."

"She's right here," Rose breathed out. There wasn't anger in her tone, more resignation. She stroked her hand up and down his pinstriped arm. "I have Soliarn and Tiallu," she said with a smile. "And I also have Leela. I'm safe as houses out there."

He turned toward her and pressed his lips against her forehead. His eyes were wide and terrified as he looked toward his brother. "I wish you hadn't said that."

Braxiatel pressed his lips together into a half smile of understanding. He looked toward the pile of items still inside the Doctor's arms. "So? Are we going to set the ladies up with the surveillance equipment you've procured from your TARDIS? I'd very much like it if we did this sooner rather than later."

"Yes," the Doctor said with a nod of his head. All worry seemed to flutter our of him completely as his eagerness to show off what he had in the way of gadgets. He walked to the console and set the box atop it. "I've had these for a while, but never had the chance to use any of it until now." He opened the box and looked to his brother with a light smirk on his face. "Grabbed this kit from a vault at UNIT when I was there in my Third…"

"In the 1970's," Braxiatel muttered. "When technology of this nature really was in it's infancy." He poked his finger through a pile of chunky looking earpieces with mocrophones attached. "And this is what you want to go with?" He looked toward the doorway into the deeper parts of his own ship. "I am quite certain that I have much more advanced – and less cumbersome – tech in my lab."

"Gallifreyan tech," the Doctor muttered. "Which, yes, is far more advanced of course." He lifted his eyes and a shoulder in a shrug. "And therefore can much more easily fall victim to jamming efforts … If this truly is an attack against Gallifreyans and Time Lords."

"I'm quite certain it is," Braxiatel confirmed darkly. "For a few reasons."

"Being?" Romana asked with accusation in her tone.

"I'm not quite sure where you intend to lead with that, Romana," Braxiatel said with a slide of his eyes toward her. "What accusation are you trying to make?"

The guardedness of his response and his stature answered her question well enough and she narrowed her eyes at him. "I think you know full well what accusation I'm making, Brax. It is hardly a coincidence that you and Rose ended up here, is it?"

He felt the glare of his brother on him but chose not to acknowledge it with a look. Instead he stood tall, squared his shoulders, and looked down toward her from across the console as he tried for flatly spoken innocence. "Estrail has long been known as a private and friendly planet. I brought Rose here with the intention of the two of us to discuss the events of the … of the evening I left." He looked toward Rose, who stared at him with withheld disbelief and annoyance. "Isn't that right, Rose?"

She felt all eyes on her at that question. She knew exactly why Braxiatel had brought them here, and it had nothing to do with any form of conversation about anything. His younger incarnation was responsible for this trip. Not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to start an all-out row before she stepped into danger, she let out a breath and shook her head. "Hard to say for sure as we didn't get to it," she began far too easily. "Brax did say that we needed to talk, which is why I came with him. But pretty much as soon as we stepped outside his capsule, we noticed something wasn't right."

The relief that crossed past his eyes was almost palpable. When eyes moved from her, she covertly held up a pair of fingers toward her brother in law, indicating that now he owed her twice. He nodded shortly and mouthed the words thank you to her.

"Right then," the Doctor drawled long, his voice indicating he knew there were more than a couple of omissions in his wife's answer. "Care to let on how you believe this is an attack specifically toward Gallifreyans, and not a more broad spectrum style of, perhaps defense against off-worlders?"

"Voices of tortured Time Lord souls," Braxiatel answered simply. "And only Time Lords. Combine that with the atmospheric saturation levels of both Lindos and Artron…"

"Both?" the Doctor asked with surprise.

Romana seemed just as surprised. "Lindos saturation I could expect," she stated. "Artron is produced in the Time Vortex and is only released by our Capsules in such high saturation levels during a regeneration…"

"To contain the Lindos," Braxiatel added. "Yes. Indeed." He looked to Rose. "Which is why Rose has such high levels of it in her system – to treat against the high levels of Lindos she's been exposed to."

Rose coughed. "I'm sorry? What did you just say?" She looked at her hands and arms as though half expecting them to be glowing. "I'm riddled with TARDIS energy?"

"Later," he answered her. "We will talk."

Rose looked to the Doctor instead. "Is it dangerous?"

He shook his head. "Completely benign, really," he answered. "Except against Lindos. It can get pretty nasty with that." He shifted his hands in the air to indicate an invisible ball in his hands. "It's a radiation that will surround the molecules of the Lindos enzyme." He slowly brought his hands together. "In a high enough concentration, it suffocates the enzyme..." He clapped his hands together loudly. 'And BAM! Gone."

"So," she sang out long. "Not enough of it, and it'll what, just contain it?" She looked to Braxiatel, who seemed to have a stunned expression on his face at her question. "You know, keep it held inside that little ball forever?"

"Oh by the Gods," Braxiatel managed out with a roll of realisation in his head. "It had to come from the mind of a human, rather than those of us who should know better, but I think Rose is onto something." He ran the flat of his palm down his face and exhaled a deep breath. "Artron can be used to contain the Lindos and put a regeneration into permanent stasis…"

"Or cycle through all regenerations and hold each one of them in stasis," the Doctor breathed out worriedly. "The power that can be drawn from it is immeasurable." His head flicked to Romana. "I've seen it. During the War, I landed on a planet where a Time Lord held himself within an Artron field during regeneration. He exhausted himself completely of the power to regenerate, but what the Sontarans were able to create from that raw power combination… It was…"

"Horrrifying," Romana ventured worriedly. "In the hands of Sontarans, I can only imagine."

"Honestly, I don't think you can truly imagine what they came up with," he argued softly. "They had created weapons that could have put them in the Time War with a decent chance."

Romana's expression didn't' shift from worried. "Do we know who is here then; and just what they're doing with the potential energy reserve they have here?" She looked toward her husband, who's expression was dark and annoyed. "Brax?"

His nose lifted with a deep sniff. He didn't answer her question, instead he answered the one that seemed to be swimming inside his own head. "So, that's what he's doing…"

"Who?" Romana asked.

He flicked his eyes to hers. "Oh. No one in particular. Do excuse me a moment." He walked with a stiff stalk in his gait toward the corridor. He paused before passing through. "Thete. Enough time wasting. Set the ladies and the wolves up, and let's end this." He looked toward the two humans. "Rose. Leela. I wish the both of you luck and safety. I'll see you when you return."

"Where are you going?" The Doctor asked.

"To test a hypothesis," he answered over his shoulder as he walked through the door. "And hope to any deity watching that I'm wrong."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Darkness had fallen completely across this side of the planet. A large orange moon in the sky afforded the four intrepid wanderers a decent enough level of ambient, natural lighting to guide their path, but small LED lights affixed on headbands provided a safer lighting level.

Leela was less than comfortable with the devices the Doctor had attached to her. The glasses, thick rimmed, and laden with a small camera in the centre, was far too heavy on the bridge of her nose. The headband with its heavy light only further deepened her level of annoyance. An ear-piece that provided constant chatter from the Time Lords back in the capsule was teetering her too close to her tolerance level. More than once, she'd lifted a knife to the straps ready to cut them off.

"Is this really necessary," she moaned to Rose after the five minute walk from the capsule toward the edge of the pit. "I am worried that it might be a burden toward my ability to properly protect you."

"You're not here for my protection," Rose said with a smile.

"It is an unspoken request of your mate," she replied with a shrug. "The Doctor worries for your safety."

"He worries too much," Rose said with a sigh. "I'm more than capable of keeping my own well enough …" Her words faltered out when she found the scuff marks in the grass where Braxiatel had fallen. She dropped the pair of climbing harnesses on the ground and let out a breath. "Even saved his life a few times. Ask me, if anyone needs to worry about anyone is me frettin' about him."

Rose pointed to the ground, and the scuff marks. "Here's where Brax dropped like a tonne. I'll set up, and we can rappel down."

Leela looked over the edge. "Are you sure that there is not a way down that does not require me to put all of my trust in a flimsy rope?"

"I'm afraid not," Rose answered with a sigh as she hugged a tree to put a rope around it. "And it's not real flimsy. These are the ropes used by the rescue ops teams on Gallifrey. Stronger even than Brax's sense of self righteousness."

Leela smiled, but didn't remark on that. Instead she looked toward the two wolves, who were pawing urgently at the ground. "How will we bring Soliarn and Tiallu down?"

"We don't," she answered with a smile and a look toward her two precious wolves. Their eagerness to get out an about had their thick coats luminesce an almost greenish hue underneath the orange light of the moon. Both of them stood at the edge of the pit, their noses low. Low gruffs toward each other, and a gesture of their noses toward the treetops told Rose they were on it. "Looks like my two brilliant pups have already made their plans."

Leela looked toward them as Rose handed her a harness. "How might they do that?"

Rose wriggled into her harness and clipped it closed around her hips. "They'll use the trees."

"They can climb?" Leela asked with honest surprise as she pulled on her harness. "But they are wolves. Wolves can not climb trees."

"These ones can," Rose assured her as she made sure Leela was safely clipped into her rope and harness. "Brilliant climbers, actually. Back on Gallifrey they hunted their favourite prey in the trees. I didn't much like it when they brought home their leftovers and left it outside my bedroom door, of course…" She grunted as she tugged hard on a pull to tighten the harness. When Leela peeped uncomfortably, Rose chuckled. "Sorry. The tighter the better."

"I could just use the trees like the wolves," she offered instead. "This would make me much more comfortable."

Rose shrugged. "Fine by me, of course. I can meet you on the ground." A rather firm order filtered through the communications line from the capsule denying Leela's request. Both women winced at the tone and volume of the order in their ears. "Well. I guess that's decided then, isn't it? Thank you, Darling."

Leela sighed and nodded. "I am not a Time Lord," she managed through her teeth in reply. "I do not take orders from Time Lords, Presidents, or Doctors."

More unhappy phrasing came from the capsule.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you said please instead of making demands from the safety of the capsule," Rose said with a sigh as she walked to the pit and turned her back to it. She gave a firm tug on the rope to make sure it was secure. "Might go over a bit better to those of us out here where it's, you know, dangerous." She leaned back over the pit, letting the rope take her entire weight and looked toward the wolves. "Okay, you two. Off you go." She exhaled a shrill sound through her teeth that was not only a half-howled, half cried signal for them to move, but proved to be a good little bit of annoyance through the mic.

The wolves looked to each other, touched their tips of their noses together, then separated and took off at a run. They leapt as a perfectly synchronised pair across the space between the cliff face and the tree tops that swayed and swung at least five metres away. They both disappeared into their own trees with a swish and the crack of breaking tree limbs.

"They do get to have all the fun, don't they?" Leela said with an envious sigh as she leaned back over the edge of the cliff beside Rose. "I wish to release the wolf inside me at times." Her eyes shifted to Rose. "As do you, I feel."

"You have no idea," Rose admitted with a scrape of her feet on the edge as she started to rappel down the cliff. "It's always in there, caged and impatient, isn't it? Looking for any kind of release."

"You feel caged?" Leela asked curiously.

"Figuratively speaking, I suppose sometimes," she admitted with a shrug. "It's within me. I feel it. It wants release sometimes, and I don't really have an outlet to find that release."

"Your mate isn't providing you with that?"

Rose's feet skidded on the cliff's edge in shock that Leela had said that. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Release," she answered simply. "Does he not make you howl like the wolf, Rose?" She exhaled a sound of surprise. "There was a time he felt it an honour and his duty to do that for you."

"We are …ehm…" she exhaled a sigh and resumed her slow walk down the wall. "We're still working things out. Not quite there yet."

"What is it that holds you from him?" A remark from the capsule and both women let out a groan. "We have a long way to go until we reach the bottom of this climb, Romana. If we are to meet danger and possible death on the ground, then you will let us talk as friends on the way down." She looked down into the incredible darkness below. "I will have to admit to surprise, Rose. You and the Doctor were always like Andred and me when it came to this."

"I don't know, Leela," she replied with a sigh. "I still … Oh, I don't know. Right now it's hard to forget what brought me to Gallifrey in the first place, you know?"

"Do you love him?"

"Of course I do." She exhaled. "My love for him has never changed."

"Then I do not see the problem," Leela offered with a lift of her head. She looked upward at her rope and prayed to her deity that it would be both long and strong enough to get them down safely. "If it helps you to know, I was in your place before," she said with a sigh. "With anger toward my mate for his actions."

"Is this to do with Torvald?" Rose questioned. "I don't know what happened, but you have referred to that name with disgust…"

Leela did growl out loud and long at the name. "My mate. Andred. He made a foolish decision that hurt me very deeply. He made me believe he was dead. I suffered. I grieved his loss." She sighed deeply. "And yet he was there. He watched me suffer. He watched as my heart slowly died without him."

"My God, Leela," Rose panted out with empathy along her breath. "How?"

"He did not tell me that he had regenerated," Leela said angrily. "He took the life of another man and stood in his place instead of his own. He became a horrible weasel of a creature. One I wanted to kill just to look at him." She stopped her climb to look toward Rose. There was moisture within both of their eyes, and mirrored sadness shared across their distance. "When I found out the truth. I could not forgive him. I did not want to believe that my Andred, my lion, that he could be so cruel like that."

"I really want to hug you right now," Rose said with a whimper. "That's so horrible."

Leela let out a short laugh. "That's a Time Lord," she said with a shake in her head. "They do not think. They do not speak truth. They do not think of anything or anyone more than they do themselves."

"And yet we love them," Rose said with a sigh.

"Foolishly we do," she agreed. "Because for all of their faults, they love, Rose. They love like no other with the full force of the two hearts inside their chests."

"And when you have that love," Rose sighed. "Yeah. It's the most amazing feeling."

"And you miss that."

"I do," she breathed. "So much." She kicked off the wall and dropped a fast couple of feet before steadying herself again. "Oh, I know he loves me as much as he ever has. I'm not doubting that at all."

"If I might offer you my thoughts?"

Rose nodded. "Of course."

"Take him back into your heart and into your bed," she said simply. "Let him make you howl like the wolf you are. Make him howl like the winds of the storm that he is." She took a breath. "If you punish him then you also punish you, and you are not to be punished for what he did. Be mad at him. Be angry. But don't…" She froze at words coming from the capsule and snarled. "You might not need to hear this, Braxiatel, but Rose does. So you will – as Rose says – shut up."

"He's probably right," Rose said with a sigh. "We'd better focus."

"I am quite focused," Leela half snapped. "Unlike the Lord Cardinal, I am able to do more than one thing at one time." She sounded out a single laugh at his response. "Lying does not count, Braxiatel, as it is as natural as breathing is to you."

Rose shook her head and chuckled at the growling from the other end. "And you kiss Romana with that mouth?"

"As I was saying," Leela continued with a huff. "We do not have to forgive them. I will never forgive Andred for what he did to me on Gallifrey. Never. He knows this. But I love him. He loves me, and we move on. Together. Stronger." Her feet touched the soft moist soil at the bottom of the cliff. "I make a vow to you, Rose. If you take the Doctor back into you bed and into your body, you can both move on … as Andred and I have."

Rose touched feet to the ground and quickly unfastened the ropes and harness. It didn't escape her notice at all that the Doctor had remained completely silent throughout the exchange. She chose not to make any decision or comment any further on it herself, but she would definitely consider it over the next while. For now, she let her head slowly pan left to right to let those back on the capsule see what she could.

"Seems pretty quiet down here," she said quietly. "The air is very, very thick down here. Foggy."

Leela agreed quickly. "It is hard to take in a deep breath. Very thick. Not unlike those days on Gallifrey where the air is wet and hot."

"The ninety-percent humid days they get in mid summer," Rose recalled with a sigh. "Fourty-five degrees with a Humidex in the fifties. Yeah, don't miss that much, ta."

"Where are the wolves?" Leela queried with worry. "I thought they would be here before us."

Rose lifted her head, drew in a breath, and then let out a long haunting howl up into the night. The howl danced low around them, unable to lift itself higher in the thickness of the air around them. In a short moment, the howl was answered by a long feminine cry followed by the lower and more masculine sound of Soliarn. Rose smiled, ready to emit another sound to her wolves, but thought better of it. She could do this with them for hours – and did on many nights on Gallifrey when her husband wasn't home – but instead made the more punctuated sound across the way to tell them to stop their hiding and join her.

Tiallu's blue-white fur appeared as a light blur through the dense, foggy air, bouncing with each bounding leap she took. Soliarn followed a short distance behind her, his bounds a zig-zag of strides as he leapt of what could only be boulders or fallen trees.

Rose didn't need to drop into a crouch to greet them. They were almost as tall as she was when on all fours, so she waited in a high stand for them to greet her and Leela. Tiallu materialised completely into the clearing. There was something in her mouth, a greenish and withered looking thick branch of sorts.

"What've you got?" Rose asked curiously as her wolf dropped the item at her feet and lifted her head with a low-sounding wolf of pride that she'd found her an offering. Behind her, Soliarn moved side to side with obvious discomfort. His front paws pounded the ground and his breath was hot and steaming in the thick air.

A rustle in the near distance had Leela on immediate guard. She put her hand on Rose's arm. "Did you hear that?"

"I did," she replied with a whisper. She looked into the foggy distance, where Leela's focus was. "What do you think?"

"I'll take a look," she offered quietly. "Stay here with Tiallu. Soliarn, with me."

He dipped his head with a snort, lowered onto his haunches, and then leapt high over his mate to land flawlessly and proudly at a full stand beside Leela. He looked to Tiallu, sniffed the air, and then turned and followed Leela into the fog.

Rose watched with apprehension and worry. Although Leela was more than capable of protecting and defending herself, and that Soliarn was as dangerous as any beast that would dare come near them, she still worried. She looked toward her own dangerous sentinel with a light smile on her face. "Just you and me now, Tia," she breathed out after a moment. "Now. What did you bring me, then?"

She dropped into a crouch next to Tiallu to take a better look at it. Her wolf was a playful one when the urge took her, but she wasn't one to bring sticks to play fetch like an ordinary dog might. No. That was a little beneath the both of them. She pushed the glasses further up the bridge of her nose and looked at the ground, and at the shrivelled, wrinkled thing on the ground …

…That had a perfectly identifiable set of five gnarled and curled fingers at one end of it.

"What the hell?" she yelled with accusation toward her wolf. "Did you just tear that off someone?" Her back went up straight and she took a panicked look around them. "Doctor? What species of people are here? Does this …. God … this arm look like it's from any of them?" She felt bile rise in her throat. "I can't believe she brought me an arm."

There was a rustle off to her left, and Rose quickly turned toward it. Immediately, Tiallu rushed to circle herself around Rose's legs. She held her mistress back behind her and growled into the thick fog. Tiallu's growls hung around them, only heightening the sound of her aggression into the mic and back into the capsule.

She could hear the suddenly worried chatter from the capsule and the warnings for her to stay behind Tiallu. She also heard the demand for her to keep her eyes toward the sound, to be brave and not look away. They needed to see who or what she was abut to face if they were going to assist in trying to best advice how to counter whatever it was that was on approach.

She heard her husband remind her to remember that he loved her … in those three very specific words that he rarely ever said to her.

"Can't be good if you're saying that," she murmured worriedly. Whatever Leela was seeing, wherever she was, it was probably scary enough to warrant a good old "I love you, Rose" instead of his usually truncated "My hearts" vow.

The rustling ahead of her and Tiallu grew closer. It became more of a thumping, dragging sound of a limping individual. Rose held her breath and followed the Doctor and her wolf's direction to stay well behind her as she prepared to face the threat.

A ghastly, green, withered and rotting face appeared through the thick fog. Its face was set in a permanent toothy snarl due to a good portion of its lip having rotted off, and it walked with a heavy limp as it dragged a non responsive rotten limb behind it. She didn't need any further confirmation of just what was approaching them, but the moaning sound of a mindless, brainless creature did push the idea home.

She backed off slowly, driven backward by the backward stalk of her wolf. "You can't be serious," she growled almost pitifully to herself. "Doctor, Brax … tell me that isn't what I think it is. Tell me that I'm not in a movie and that's not a Zombie."

~~oooOOOooo~~