A/N:

Summary: Rose sees something she really didn't want to see... Brax get's himself into deeper trouble.

Notes: I had a really tough day today, which made writing really really difficult. But I couldn't move into the weekend without a Friday chapter, so I pushed through a migraine (and for the first time the trick Brax used with Rose didn't work - Neither did Advil, actually, so I guess the headache wins this round) to do the best I could with half vision.

That said... it's shorter than is typical.

Now Rose is a little clever in this ... And before you huff, I think she's spent enough time around this lot that she's picked up a thing or two, ya know.

I really, truly, hope you enjoy this...

~~ooooOOOOooo~~

The towering funnel above them, and the sounds and energy it created had all three of them step backward. Rose lifted her head as she stumbled in a clumsy backward gait. She was desperate to see an end to it, but was horrified to see that it lifted high into sparking grey clouds filled with hot amber tendrils that branched a pulsing net of power in the sky. Each pulse seemed to contract against the clouds above them, pulling, pressing, and screaming across the sky.

"I'd almost call it beautiful if it wasn't filled with howling souls of the un-lived," Rose murmured to herself.

"Romana says there is nothing beautiful about it," Leela said against her ear. "But I will agree with you, Rose, even if she does not."

"It means more to her than it does me," Rose answered with a sigh. "This is filled with the faces of people she knew – or at least would have known if they were weren't ripped from their host."

"An interesting term to use,' Braxiatel mused darkly. "Host. It's morbidly accurate when one thinks about it, I suppose. The body being the vessel to everything that should be." He pressed his fingers to the side of his helmet to increase the volume of his mic to be heard over the din of howling voices. "Thete, can you do a scan…?"

"Already done," the Doctor answered gruffly over the comms. "The power readings are off the charts…"

"An official scientific term in the vernacular of a simpleton," he answered in a displeased tone of voice. "I'm not an idiot, Thete. How about you clarify exactly what you mean by off the charts?"

"It means exactly what I said," he countered. "Neither your capsule nor the TARDIS is able to give an accurate result because the figures exceed their scanning protocols. What you're looking at is a funnel of such immense raw power that it can't be measured. By the Gods, Brax, how is it even being contained?"

He looked upward. "I really don't know that it is," he admitted worriedly. "With every new set of regenerations being added, this power is only increasing. It won't be too long until it engulfs the entire planet…"

"Could it become powerful enough that it could create something similar to a sun?" Rose asked with concern. She felt Braxiatel's immediate and stunned attention on her. His wide eyes drilled against the side of her head. "A power source like that, I mean one that can actually be controlled… Your Rassilon could do anything at all he wanted in the universe."

"Why would he not simply use a sun already in the sky?" Leela asked. "Would that not be easier, and much less horrific than murdering your own people?"

"Because one cannot control a sun," Braxiatel answered more to himself than Leela. "Too much power all at once, it can't be properly harnessed."

"Yeah, but you make your own," Rose offered. "Little by little, siphoning off what you can to keep it contained, controlling the build." She looked at Braxiatel. "Then you have full control right up to when it's at full power." She looked back at the funnel and held open her hands. She looked between one and then the other. "Frog. Boiling water."

"Containment is still an issue, though," he argued lightly. "As the power builds, it will be come a more difficult beast to contain."

"didn't you say that Artron acts to suppress the Lindos?" she ventured. "And if you're pulling Lindos from the regenerations, then I thinks it's a safe bet that those ships back there are being drained of their Artron as well. Just the right mix of power and conductor to keep it under control."

There was a brief pause and then Braxiatel inhaled a breath and spoke.

"I love you, Rose," he muttered almost distractedly without looking at her. "You brilliant woman."

Rose snapped her head to him, her eyes wide with horror. "I'm sorry, what did you just say to me?"

He slid his eyes to her. "Ahh. Yes. Message from Thete. Sorry, I should have made that more clear when I said it." He huffed out as his hands fisted and shifted to press into his hips. "Whatever he took from your rather – I must admit – brilliant observation has him rather excited. For just what reason eludes me right now."

"Knowin' him," she ventured with a smile. "He's managed to come up with something to help."

"For all of our sakes, I certainly hope so," he said with a huff. He then turned toward both women and held his arms outward to almost herd them in the direction he wanted them to go. "In the meantime, we should take our minds off this disaster and see what we can do about…" His eyes closed and his head shook slowly. "I don't know what we can do about any of this."

"We can see where this power goes," Leela offered. She gestured toward the cement and steel structure at the other side of the funnel. "You can work … computers, can't you?"

"Remarkably good at it, yes," he replied with a one-sided smile. "Most of the security programmes used on Gallifrey use my coding, so I expect anything here will be easy to get into."

Leela followed behind Braxiatel as he forced a wind-stumbling stride around the edge of the funnel. "You have always made a point of saying that no one can – as you say - break through your security protocols, Braxiatel."

"No one except me," he said with a wink. "I have a back-door pass to all of the programmes I write."

"Yes," she said with a light laugh. "Of course, you do. I would expect it of you."

Rose didn't follow behind Leela or Braxiatel. Instead she remained in place and stared into the howling amber column. Her eyes followed the movement of faces within the swirling energy, and of the contorting features as they howled out in pain. She took a step closer and angled her head to one side, wanting to see deeper within the funnel, and wanting to know just how far back the wall of the unlived wailed.

It didn't quite escape her notice that she had found herself on a planet of paradox, surrounded by not only the undead, but also the unlived. The only truly living bodied souls on the entire planet belonged to two humans, one Gallifreyan, and two wolves.

"I am so sorry," she whispered toward the whipping amber wind in front of her. "I wish I knew how to help you."

A full apparition stretched up inside the centre of the funnel. It was an arch of a creature; a dark blob of a shape without limbs. She watched as it shifted through the funnel toward her. It didn't sway of shift in the winds. It didn't move or react as howling faces rushed through it. Rose's eyes widened with worry and she felt the increase of her heart begin to hammer inside her chest. Curiosity kept her firmly in place and she watched the figure slowly shift and contort into something recognisable.

"What are you?" she asked as the figure approached.

He, and it was definitely male she noted with a smile at his naked form, looked toward her with a tilt in its head as it approached. His features deepened and became more defined the closer he drew. Definitely a handsome fellow with his square jaw and classically cropped dark hair. A small curl of hair fell down over his brow, and he wore a small smile that was bordered by a perfectly manicured moustache and goatee that had just a slight smattering of grey in it.

He stood before her, a towering figure over her much shorter frame. He stopped, a naked Time Lord in all of his natural resplendent and surprisingly sculpted muscular glory surrounded by the howling faces of his fellow Lords and ladies and held up a hand toward the wall of the funnel.

Rose looked at the hand he held outward, and then looked back up into his face with an expression of question inside her narrowed eyes. His blue eyes shimmered with humour and Rose's face quickly lengthened with recognition.

"It's you," she breathed out through a gaped mouth. "From the park. I saw you – with Brax."

Her head flicked away to look toward where Braxiatel was busily typing away on a computer terminal against the wall of the open alcove. She had, indeed, seen this man before. Nearly a year ago, Braxiatel had taken a detour during her weekly run to Tesco and pulled into a park. After a warning for her to remain in the car because he'd only be a moment, he'd gotten out, walked to the rear of the vehicle, and met with this fellow. Rose recalled the meeting quite vividly as she'd spent the entire fifteen minutes watching the man though the rear-view mirror.

Braxiatel had never told her who he was, just that he was a Time Lord who had information for him regarding the war efforts on Gallifrey. When he pulled out of the carpark, Rose had watched the rear view mirror again and was surprised to find him looking back at her. He tipped his fingers from his temple in a friendly, casual salute and leaned forward in a gentile bow.

It was unnerving for her at the time. This man looked at her as if he knew her ... and knew her well. Rose could only assume that they were set to meet somewhere in his past but her future. A past and future that had yet to properly run across each other…

…Was this supposed to be that moment?

"Who are you?" she queried as she stepped forward to bring herself closer to him. She brought her hand up to his, pushing it forward to touch her palm to his. Her eyes widened and she exhaled a gasp as a small, glimmering tendril trailed from his hand to hers and curled around her wrist.

Braxiatel's voice roared from her side. "Rose! Get away from there!"

She didn't have a chance to turn her head in question as to what he was on about. He ran at a rush toward her and collided hard against her side to shove her away from the wall. His arm came around her waist to prevent her falling in a complete heap on the ground, but he was unable to stop her hip from making a heavy impact. He landed on his knee at her side, his arm underneath her back.

"What in the name of the Gods are you thinking?" he demanded hotly. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" he thrust his arm behind him in a gesture toward the fiery wall. "That is pure Lindos energy in there, Rose. More than the scanners of our capsules are capable of reading – and certainly much more than a human can tolerate."

"I knew what I was doing," she defended in a tone that was less than completely truthful.

"Woprat shit," he snarled into her face. "You had no clue at all, did you? Just felt the need to press on into something you know absolutely nothing about."

Her eyes flashed in warning at the hostility in his tone, she felt an irrational sense of anger rise within her in response. "You can stop yellin' at me at any time," she snarled in reply. "And you can get off me as well." She gave him a hard shove with both hands, which forced her to fall completely in the soft muddy ground, but she was fast to shift onto her knees and then up to a stand. "I am not one of your students. I am not one of those red-suited guards you can yell at back at the capitol, so don't you dare raise your voice at me."

"I will if I think you're doing something stupid."

"My every breathing moment according to you and your kind, Brax," she snapped. "Inferior little human, remember, we're not exactly above stupid in your eyes, are we?"

His voice lessened to a growl that snarled through his teeth. "I told you not to ever say that again."

There was a rage inside her eyes that glistened against the winds and power just over his shoulder. "Well. I guess I am too stupid to get it in my head, aren't I?"

Her breath glistened in front of her mouth, and her eyes were afire with fury. Braxiatel took a small and tentative step backward, both his hands held up in surrender. "Rose," he said carefully. "Do me a favour if you don't mind: take a breath, just a small one. Calm yourself just a little." He emitted a sound of indecision. "Ehm. Please?"

"He was going to tell me what to do," she seethed through her teeth with a hard thrust of her arm upward. "How to stop this."

He looked over his shoulder at the spinning wall. His brows locked together when he nothing but the wash of howling faces rushing by. "Who?"

"Him," she declared with a point toward the glowing funnel.

"There's no one there," he answered carefully with a slow and cautious turn of his head back toward her. "At least no one specific."

She looked around his shoulder and on seeing that the figure had disappeared, slouched backward and stomped a foot into the mud. A cry of frustration flew from the very back of her throat. "God, Brax! I had a perfect opportunity…" She panted at him, her eyes narrowed. "He was someone you know. I've seen him."

"That's impossible." he challenged. "I don't know these people, Rose. You don't know them. The owner of the body they were supposed to regenerate from didn't know them. None of the souls in there have lived even a nano span of a bodied existence."

"That's where you're wrong," she urged, her anger fleeing toward urgent explanation. "You've met him. I was there when you did.

He straightened up to his full height and looked down into her face. Her absolute vehemence that she knew who was in the funnel really couldn't be ignored. "Where? Where did you see him?"

"When we were heading to Tesco," she explained with a more eager and friendly tone. "Remember; when we stopped off at the park because you had to meet that Time Lord you said had information about the War?" She searched his face as his expression went to blank as he tried to recall. "Dark hair," she pressed. She circled her finger around her mouth and chin. "Neat looking moustache and goatee. Crystal flipping piercing blue eyes that look right through ya…"

He angled his head downward, and it had a slight tilt to one side. "Blue jeans, white shirt, black vest and grey blazer?"

"Seems awfully specific," she breathed out with widened eyes. "Yeah, I think that might be it." Her eyes flicked to the funnel. "'Course, in there he was buck naked with everything on display…"

Braxiatel coughed into his fist with a show of clear discomfort. "Yes. Well. We don't exactly regenerate a change of clothing. It is a rather naked affair, I suppose." He shuddered a shake in his shoulders,t hen looked at her with a serious expression on his face. He spoke calmly and with little emotion. "I do believe your eyes were – as you say – playing tricks with your mind. It's quite impossible that you saw who you think you did."

"No. I'm pretty sure I did," she said without uncertainty. "Same guy. I've got no doubt."

Braxiatel turned back to the whipping funnel and looked at it for a long moment. After a shake of his head, he grabbed her hand and tugged to force her to follow. "Come on. Best you stay beside me for now." He exhaled. "Based on the litany I'm hearing right now in my ear, Thete's only hanging on by a thread from materialising down here to pull you out." He tugged harder when she hesitated. "And we don't need him getting infected with this virus – unless you want a limping, snarling zombie as a husband." He snorted. "Though not much of a difference to now, I suppose. And will you please shut up, Thete. You're giving me a headache!"

Rose finally let him lead her toward the computer terminal that Leela leaned over. She used the point of one of her knives to mindlessly pick out random keys from the keyboard.

"Who is he?" Rose asked him calmly.

"Really none of your concern," he answered. "You truly didn't see what you think you saw, Rose, so best we don't continue to speculate."

"I think that I agree with you, Romana," Leela said coolly without looking up from her task. She was obviously in conversation with those left in the capsule. "And as I do often say: You know when Braxiatel is lying, because his mouth is moving."

"I can hear the both of you," Braxiatel said with a growl. "So enough of the passive-aggressive chatter between yourselves and come straight to me if you have something to say."

"I saw what Rose saw," Romana answered him with a straight tone down the line. "She did, indeed, see a figure within that funnel. And it was definitely an entity that knew who she was as he looked upon her as though he had seen her before." She sniffed hard and although none of them could see her, it was clear that she was lifting up her chin with indignance toward him. "So you will explain to all of us who this Lord of Time was."

"A man who does not and will not exist," he answered through a growl. "A paradox. That's all you need to know."

"You," Romana breathed out. "It was you, wasn't it?" Her breath was hard and obviously hurt. "You promised me."

He didn't answer the question, instead he walked toward a small conduit box beside a door and used his knife to pry it open. "I need to hijack the signal feed that's being relayed to Gallifrey in order to execute the new coding and release the statistical information we need. I'll route it through my capsule matrix module. Thete, if you wouldn't mind…"

"Answer the question, Braxiatel," Romana demanded. "I won't take no for an answer."

"This time, beloved, you will have to," he countered coolly. "Because I don't intend on responding to a question that has a paradoxical answer to it. All you need to know is that I am aware of this Lord's identity, and that his being here, now, and stuck inside a funnel of unimaginable power…" He paused to sniff. "It poses a potential danger we can't possibly comprehend."

"Or," Rose offered quietly. "It's a mistake of an unimaginable magnitude on Rassilon's end."

He flicked his eyes to her in question. "Rose?"

She smiled. "Silver lining, Brax. You guys should try it sometime instead of only focusing on the doom and gloom that exists inside a Time Lord existence." She leaned her back on the wall behind him. "If this guy is you, I mean a future you. And you've already met each other. Then he has a future, doesn't he?"

He remained silent as he cut into the rubberised insulation coating of a thin wire. There was intrigue in his side profile that showed his focus was on his own thoughts rather than splicing wires.

She turned to lean her shoulder on the wall and face him. "If he doesn't exist, then you couldn't have met with him, could you? The information he shared with you wouldn't exist."

"Paradox," he breathed out. "Timelines can change."

"Not like that it can't," she argued with a smile. "I've watched Back to the Future, you know…"

"And if you think that's in any way an accurate representation of Time Travel, then go ahead, Rose, and ignore what I said about you not talking down on yourself about your level of intelligence."

She reached out and touched his arm. "Brax. You can't tell me that you're not thinking the same thing I am right now." She shook her head as she clutched around his arm to get his full attention. "This can't be the last you. There's no way the universe will allow Irving Braxiatel only three lives out of thirteen, and you're too arrogant and in love with your presence in the cosmos to let it be your last." she blew out a soft breath and softened her tone. "And I don't want to let it be your last, either. I kind've like you a little bit."

"Just a little bit?" he questioned inside a whisper.

"You're a smug, arrogant, condescending, know-it-all prat," she said with a smile. "Can't trust you as far as we can throw you, but you're my best friend. My brother. So, yeah. Maybe a bit more than a little bit."

"Even if that was me in there," he said with a turn of his head to look at her. "Which I am still not wholly admitting to. What do you – or any of the strategic brains inside my capsule – propose we do about it?" He turned and pressed his back into the wall. "It's not like we can pluck the future me out of there and shove him back into my body, is there?"

"And we still have the virus to consider," Romana offered. "Even if you did manage to get all of your regenerations back, Brax, your first death and you'll be a zombie, just like the others."

"That's only if I've been affected," he said on a low voice.

"Which I can guarantee you will be," she shot back. "That entire whirlpool is affected. Anything coming from that will be. You will have to be quarantined and exiled from the house until we find a cure. There is too much at risk."

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said with a sniff. "What's to say that I'm not already infected just by being here. You said it yourself, Romana, I still possess the symbiotic nuclei. From the start, I knew if I stepped outside my capsule, I wouldn't be returning to London with you."

"Yet you did it anyway," she replied sadly. "You self sacrificing fool."

"Anything not to have to deal with your panel of mindless rebellion leaders," he said with a smirk. He looked to Rose. "I have no idea how to do it, Rose, but I'm on board once Thete works it out."

"He disappeared from the deck some time ago," Romana said with curiosity and worry in her tone. "Said he needed something from the TARDIS."

Rose strode forward toward the tornado. "I think I know what needs to be done," she breathed out with light fear in her voice.

"Oh no you don't," Braxiatel growled as he strode quickly forward and grabbed at her arm. "If you think I'm letting you go near that…"

"That's what you wanted me to do," she said to him with a shift of eyes toward his.

"I don't want you to do any such thing," he corrected her. He flicked his hand at the whirlpool. "If you go in there, Rose. You'll die. I'm not agreeing to it."

She shook her head and pointed toward the column. "That you," she clarified with a look back toward it. "He wanted me to step inside the funnel. And if he really is a future you, Brax, then he knows what needs to be done, because he's been here before."

"If we're both here now, then no he doesn't," he corrected her sharply. "Timelines, when they're out of synch, it's almost impossible to remember."

Rose chuckled. "You're a Lungbarrow lad. Impossible is just something you haven't tried to do yet."

"I find myself agreeing with Rose," Leela offered as she stepped up to Braxiatel's side. "When the Doctor uses the word impossible, it does seem to be a challenge and not a fact."

"Besides," Rose offered. "Don't the spirits of your lives not yet lived exist across all time? You see all that is, all that was, and all that can be in this body. Surely they see what you can't, yeah?"

"Neither of the two of you are Time Lords," he snapped in a huff. "You don't know what you're talking about, so just stop, please."

"What did you call him again, Rose?" Leela asked. "Con .. condes… Oh, what was the word?"

"Condescending arse," she said with a sigh. "And speaking of arse." She turned and slowly stepped backward. "I've seen you naked now, Brax. Buck naked, in all the…" she winced and cleared her throat. "In all your Time Lord glory. I'm almost thinking death is a better option than ever having to look at you and remember that."

"Get back here," he demanded with a hard stride forward.

"Leela, hold him back," she growled. "If this is the only chance we have…"

"Then we need to take it," Leela agreed with a nod of her head. She stepped in front of Braxiatel with her knife held upward under his chin. "I am not a Time Lord, but I know how to kill one who only has one life."

Off to the side of him a slight warp in the fabric of their reality started to shift. The howl and whine of the TARDIS in materialisation was unheard over the sounds of the howling winds and souls behind them, and so in silence the pulsing blue of the ship slowly materialised into existence.

"Don't let her do this, Leela," Braxiatel growled through a curled lip.

"Trust yourself," Leela answered. "You call to her for help, she needs to answer that call."

Her eyes flicked toward the TARDIS as it fully materialised in place and the doors burst open. Braxiatel caught that second of disconnect, of distraction, and shoved her wrist and her blade from his throat. With a grunt, he had her spun in place and held her tightly from behind.

"Thete," he called out. "Stop her! For the love of Omega and the Other, stop your wife from doing this!"

The Doctor burst out of the ship wearing a thick, oversized orange space-suit with a domed helmet. His run was cumbersome, but he sped across the cement floor toward where Rose was on her own run toward the tornado.

"Rose!" He called out. "Don't do this!"

She twisted at the very edge of the bustling, bruising winds and dropped a shoulder to brace herself against the force of power she expected to encounter. She gave the Doctor a look of apology and fear, then winced and let out a long cry as she threw herself into the wild and whipping winds of the tornado.

~~oooOOOooo~~

With his face lit only by the blue glow of a security monitor, Rassilon watched the security feed on Estrail with a scowl on his aged and withered face. His scowl deepened and held a decent measure of curious intrigue at the small blonde woman at the centre of his focus.

"Hello Rose," he whispered with a darkened and dangerous tone. "I've heard quite a lot from the matricians about you." He twisted a dial on the security console to tighten an image. "Let's see what you're really capable of, shall we? See if you truly are worth the efforts I am expending to procure you from the clutches of Braxiatel and the Doctor."

He took a seat at the console and leaned forward, his chin inside his palm as he watched the scene play out before him.

In the darkness behind him, a small statured Time Lord watched his Lord President and his interest in the small human woman on the screen. Without a sound and with a stealth that didn't even shift the air around him, Narvin slipped out of the room and into the hallway. Once out of earshot, he pulled a thin black phone from his pocket and thumbed the only contact that existed.

"Romana," he said with a flat voice. "It's Narvin..."

~~oooOOOooo~~