Interlude: Gallifrey

"I thought she'd be back by now."

Leela looked up. She was sitting on the ground, polishing her daggers. She was holding her favorite, the best balanced of the lot, while the others were carefully laid out on the ground before her in a neatly regimented half-circle. "She may not have shown herself to the Doctor yet."

She didn't ask how he'd found her, when she'd deliberately gone out of her way to avoid everyone today. The children were at lessons, Andred had been on duty, or so she thought, and she hadn't told anyone where she intended to spend the afternoon.

Not that it was particularly difficult to figure out, since this was one of favorite spots. She'd come here, to this neglected jumble of fallen columns and half-destroyed stone walls at the farthest ends of Andred's family property, ever since the earliest days of her marriage. Whenever she felt the need to be alone, whenever the civilized confines of Gallifrey began to weigh on her, she came here. Once Noni was born, she'd ceased her perambulations into the wilder parts of her adopted planet, recognizing that motherhood precluded putting herself deliberately into harm's way, at least without some dire need prompting it.

Andred squatted down in front of her, long habit automatically keeping his boots from disturbing the deadly, gleaming arc of metal. "Come on, Leela, we both know better than that. Even if he didn't know she was there when he left, it wouldn't have taken him long to discover her. There's no way she could stay away from the baby."

"She has become too attached. If I had known this would happen, I would never have allowed her to spend so much time with Susan."

Andred reached out and caught his wife's hand gently in his. She was scowling, her knuckles white as she unconsciously clutched her knife tighter. "You don't mean that. Besides, short of turning them away at the very beginning, there was no way of keeping her from befriending Kyris and Ace, from growing to love their daughter."

Leela lowered her head, allowing her hair to fall forward and hide her face. But only for a moment; Andred smiled as she abruptly straightened and looked at him. "That is true. But I still wish--"

"You wish she hadn't stowed away on the TARDIS," Andred interrupted, bringing her fist up to his lips and gently kissing her knuckles until she reluctantly loosened her grip on the knife. He pulled it from her unresisting fingers and placed it carefully on the ground with the others. "A wish I share. But I also know you blame yourself. And you shouldn't."

"Why should I not?" Leela's eyes flashed angrily. "I killed the Master without thinking, as if I were still that savage child of the Sevateen. As if I hadn't lived half my life on Gallifrey, as if I'd never traveled with the Doctor and learned to temper my responses--" She went silent only because Andred leaned forward and kissed her. When he pulled back she tried to speak again, and he silenced her with the same method. The second time she returned the kiss with a little more enthusiasm, relaxing in his embrace if only for a little while. Fear had become a part of her life once again, only this time it was concern for another rather than herself that caused it to flow through her veins.

"Noni and Susan were in danger," Andred whispered against her lips when it was obvious she was permitting his kisses to have the desired effect. "You reacted as any mother would, to protect her child. I doubt if I'd have done anything differently had it been me." He sat back on his haunches and eyed her collection of knives. "Well, perhaps one thing..."

A reluctant smile played against her lips. "You are far better with guns than knives," she agreed gravely. Every one of her children, with the exception of their youngest daughter, Mia, who was still a toddler, could throw better than their father, a fact he cheerfully admitted.

"So what should we do now?" Andred was still worried; Noni was still missing, and reassurances to his wife notwithstanding, he also wished the Master was still alive. Because if he were, Noni would be there with them, right now. Along with Kyris and Ace and, perhaps, the Doctor.

"We wait." Leela began returning the knives to their cases, meticulously replacing each in its spot. "The Doctor will not allow any harm to come to her." Her voice turned grim. "He knows he would have to answer to me if it did." She placed two of the knives into her belt sheathes, tucked two into her boot tops and closed the covers on the cases before picking them up and rising smoothly to her feet. "Besides, it is my belief that he has decided to bring her with him to find his family."

"What? Why would he do that?" Andred was startled; he hadn't thought of that possibility, that the Doctor would keep Noni with him for longer than the time required to return to Gallifrey.

"Because he knows our daughter, what she is capable of. Tell me, Andred; were I the one to have gone into the TARDIS without the Doctor's knowledge, what would be the first thing I would do if he sent me home?"

Andred stared at her. Gallifrey's sun was setting, lending a golden glow to her outline, leaving her face in shadow, but he could feel her gaze upon him as he considered her question. "You would find a way to follow him," he finally said. "Barring that, you'd find a way to look for Ace and Kyris yourself. If you wanted something that badly, you'd go after it."

"And Noni is much like me." Leela handed him one of the knife cases. He took it automatically as she slipped her free hand into his and tugged him gently toward the house. It was a long walk back from this spot. It lay beyond the gardens and paths that extended for many acres around their home, these ruins of a long-abandoned residence Andred's family hadn't bothered to clear. It was this un-Gallifreyan tendency toward disorder that was part of the attraction she felt for him, at least initially, before she'd managed to look past her confused feelings for the Doctor and admit that she'd instinctively chosen the right man to spend the remainder of her life with.

"She's a bit too much like you," Andred mumbled, but he squeezed his wife's hand affectionately. "Which means, I suppose, that she'll thrive on this sort of adventure."

"And return home with many stories to share with an envious audience of younger brothers and sisters," Leela agreed with a smile. "I trust the Doctor. He will return her to us safely." She met his gaze, lips thinned. "May the Gods help him if he does not. Because he will have me to answer to."

"That's my girl," Andred murmured, pulling her closer for another kiss.