A/N: Extract is from Paroxysmic, the second in this series. Leah's only two there. How time flies! :o

Chapter 15 - S is for Someone Always Dies

Leah found the nest. Most of the spiders were out hunting, so it wasn't too hard to navigate around the edges, occasionally blasting her Rastinate as any spiders that happened to roam her way, finding herself less and less scared as she advanced. She soon reached what could've only be their food storage, or larder – a huge cavern with hundreds of pods hanging from the ceiling. This was where most of the cries were coming from. All the people were trapped inside them.

'Uncle Brax?' she dared to whisper, walking among the pods nervously. The cries immediately increased in volume. 'No! Shush!' she urged, but none of them cared.

'Leah!' she finally heard. It was Uncle Brax. She followed his voice to a pod in the corner. She tested the material, but it was like steel. So she brought out the sonic screwdriver, adjusted the setting, and ran it down the pod.

It took a few attempts, but eventually the pod material split and Uncle Brax all but fell out, only just about avoiding his niece. He gasped in air, turning over to lie on his back, staring up at her. 'What's happened?' he choked out.

'The spiders are taking everyone,' she whispered. 'We made Rastinate, but they took Alex and Auntie Gwen and Uncle Ianto…'

Brax sat up immediately. 'All of them? And Alex? He's here?'

Leah nodded. 'Yeah…'

'No, no, no…' Uncle Brax muttered, scrambling to his feet. 'Look for them!'

Leah moved immediately around the pods, calling out for her brother in Gallifreyan. It was Uncle Brax who found him in a tiny pod, yelling Leah over to use the sonic screwdriver. Seconds later her little brother was revealed, Uncle Brax catching him as he fell out of the pod.

'Alex?' Uncle Brax asked, pushing the boy's unruly brown hair from his eyes. 'Alex!'

Alex blinked open his eyes, made a squeaking noise and abruptly sneezed, the remaining cobwebs flying off of his face. He then looked up at his uncle, wide-eyed.

'Shikla?' Uncle Brax asked.

Alex nodded, pulling out of Brax's hands and shaking himself off, running his little hands through his hair to try and get more cobwebs out.

Uncle Brax nodded, picking the last of the webs off of his nephew. 'We need to kill these things and get out,' he announced.

Leah pulled out an aerosol can and a smoke bomb, handing them to her Uncle before looking around at the other pods. 'What do we do with these people? What about Uncle Ianto and Auntie Gwen?'

'If we release these people there'll be chaos,' Uncle Brax muttered. 'We need to kill the spiders and come back…' He paused momentarily, looking around the pods. 'Gwen? Ianto?'

They waited, listening. They couldn't hear them through the cries for help, and most of the remaining pods were the same size. There was very little chance of finding them without releasing crowds of panicked people into the nest.

'Okay,' Uncle Brax continued. 'We'll find them later. Let's kill these spiders.'

Uncle Brax, Leah and Alex headed towards the main nest, where the queen was sat. As they neared it became increasingly more difficult as more spiders were running around the nest, but they managed to get to the central nest without too much Rastinate being used.

They ended up crouching in a tunnel directly behind the queen. Leah regarded the situation, the thousands of spiders running around the chamber. In front of them was one of the queen's legs about half a metre wide, occasionally flexing as various little spiders travelled back and forth up it.

'We've gotta go for the queen,' Leah whispered.

'I will do that,' Uncle Brax said, readying his smoke bomb.

Leah swallowed nervously, quickly realising what had to be done. 'You can't.'

'Why not?'

'You're too heavy.'

Uncle Brax looked at her. 'No.'

'I'm light, the queen'll think I'm a spider, but she'll feel you,' Leah pointed out.

Uncle Brax swallowed, clearly nervous. 'Leah… Let me do this.'

'You'll die,' Leah told him straight. 'I've got a chance.'

'I can't just sit here…'

'You won't be, you're gonna distract,' she said, pointing across the room. 'Go over there and do a smoke bomb to make the spiders panic, then I can climb up and kill the queen. Mmmkay?'

Uncle Brax looked as though he'd been shot. 'This isn't… I can't let you.'

'It's the only way and you know it, cos she'll kill you, and I won't let Alex do it,' she said, taking her little brother's hand reassuringly.

Uncle Brax sighed. He clearly knew she was right. 'Okay,' he muttered, and reached to his nephew's head. 'I need to block off the bond again.'

Leah nodded, Uncle Brax obediently cutting off Alex's link to his father. 'Alex, you're with me,' he told the boy. Alex nodded.

Leah quickly hugged her little brother. 'Just hide,' she instructed him. Alex nodded again.

Uncle Brax hugged her next, with far more warmth than Leah had become accustomed to with him. 'Please, please don't be foolish,' he begged the girl. 'Everyone is going to be fine.'

Leah nodded, though with far more conviction than she felt. He simply smiled at her, took her little brother's hand and led him around the tunnels to the other side.

She waited patiently, suddenly feeling tremendously scared. She knew what she had to do. Go up the spider's leg, place a Rastinate bomb on its head and run. It all seemed so simple in her head, but actually doing it was another matter. Looking at the spider now, its leg seemed so thin. Its fangs so big. It was twitchy, too. Maybe she'd fall off. Maybe she'd be spotted and she'd be covered in loads of spiders in seconds and she'd die. And her daddy wouldn't know. He wouldn't know at all until Uncle Brax told him.

Not for the first time, she wished her daddy was with her.

'Daddy,' she moaned.

'What?' her daddy asked quickly, anxiously. 'Is he here?'

She looked up for a moment, then shook her head and moved to hold him a little tighter. 'Can I... Can I go home now please?'

'... Why do you want to go home? I thought you wanted to stay and help?'

She sniffed again, her eyes watering. 'I scared, Daddy.'

He reached out and squeezed her hand a little to reassure her. His hand was so big, comfortable and protective like a cocoon. 'It's normal to be scared, and being scared doesn't make you a coward or incapable. Being brave isn't about not feeling scared, it's about being absolutely terrified but doing what you have to do anyway.'

Little Leah frowned. That wasn't right. 'You're not ever scared,' she told him quietly, looking away.

'Hey, look at me,' her daddy said and she looked back, her eyes still watering. He offered a smile. 'The truth is, I'm constantly scared. All day, every day. I'm scared of the monsters, I'm scared of their weapons and I'm scared I'll fail one day. I'm scared for you and your Mummy so much, because at any moment... things could go wrong. I know that. And I'm absolutely terrified of it. But I do what I do because no one else will. I think you understand that, don't you?'

She nodded again.

'I know you can do this, because you're so beautiful, so brave, so intelligent... you're my daughter. I love you so much. This is dangerous, you know that, and I know that. You could get hurt doing it, and believe me... That little fact is screaming at me. Because if you ever got hurt... I'd cry so hard. You're my little girl, but you're growing up so fast and it's time I stepped back. I trust you, I really do. I know you're ready for this. What d'you say?'

Leah swallowed, looking at him again. He always made her feel better. And she didn't want to let him down. '... Okay,' she finally answered.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' she said, before giving him a little smile. 'I fix this, no worry.'

'I will worry,' her daddy confessed, 'but I know you'll prove me wrong,'

'I'll fix it, don't worry,' Leah muttered to herself, clutching onto her smoke bomb in her sweaty palm. 'I'll fix it, don't worry. I'll fix it, don't worry.'

Suddenly there was the hiss of a deployed smoke bomb. It had started. For a moment she just stood there, paralysed, until suddenly she was running without even telling her feet to move. She burst out of her hiding place, running through the gap in the rocks, up a small hill where she leapt for the queen's leg. The leg twitched as Leah gripped it with every ounce of strength she had. The spiders began to scatter away from the Rastinate Uncle Brax had deployed, several dropping dead on the spot. But Leah wasn't paying attention to that. She was climbing with her hands and feet, up the giant leg. The leg twitched again. She looked up, but the spider's head wasn't in her direction. It was focusing on Uncle Brax and Alex. So she kept going, kept climbing up. In ten seconds she reached the head, and planted her bomb in amongst the spider's fur, setting it to detonate.

Finally, the queen realised something was amiss. Its head swivelled, nearly sending Leah and the bomb flying but she managed to stay put, holding desperately onto its fur. Below her she could see her Uncle and brother, running around trying to avoid the queen's legs which were snatching at them; trying to grab them.

But she had to get off, and she hadn't thought this far ahead….

Suddenly she was grabbed around the waist. She shrieked, looking down to realise a long hairy leg was wrapped around her midriff, getting tighter every second…

'Leah!' she heard her Uncle cry, panicked. Leah increased the pitch of her scream, utterly terrified as the queen tried to crush her, the bomb only metres away and ticking down to detonation. She struggled desperately, trying to writhe out of the queen's leg, but it wasn't working. She tried to get the sonic screwdriver from her pocket, but she was only able to get a weak grip before the queen jolted her and the sonic dropped, down from her pocket and onto the mud below.

'Leah!' Alex. She looked down, her vision blurring, but she could make out her little two-year-old brother running under the queen. Uncle Brax was crying out for him too now, but he didn't seem to care. He grabbed the sonic screwdriver, fumbling momentarily before raising it and blasting the queen with sonic waves.

The queen shrieked and dropped Leah directly into a pile of dead spiders. Leah screamed again, untangling herself from the legs and getting up just in time to see her little brother be assailed by another spider.

She ran forward, the Rastinate aerosol back in her hand. She continually squeezed the trigger, spraying the deadly compound directly at the spider on her little brother. It shrieked and died. Something grabbed her. She yelled and struggled, but quickly realised it was her uncle. He scooped her and Alex off of the ground and dived behind a rock, covering them both. Leah closed her eyes and reached out for her brother impulsively, holding his head to her to protect him.

The bomb hissed out its gas, and then promptly exploded. Pieces of the queen hit the wall above them as pale blue-green hemolymph from the spider splattered across the inside of the cavern, until, briefly, there was silence. Uncle Brax peered over the rock, Leah shortly following. The queen was in pieces, and the spiders that remained were still running around in a frenzy as the Rastinate began to clear. Uncle Brax quickly deployed another smoke bomb into the middle of the group. A few escaped in time, but most were smothered in the Rastinate and died immediately, others dying in the explosion, with their long legs curling up.

Suddenly there was a deep, reverberating crack. Leah looked up, and realised that the mud walls and ceiling were collapsing in...

'Run!' Uncle Brax cried, gripping his niece and nephew's hands to pull them up to run. So they did, following their Uncle as he charged to the exit that led to the spiders' larder. It completely collapsed as soon as they were out, and the rest of the tunnels were beginning to collapse too...

They made it to the larder with a few precision squirts of Rastinate against spiders who were still trying to round them up despite the situation. Leah got to work immediately, sonicking the cocoons as fast as she could to free the terrified villagers. Panicking ensued, but Uncle Brax bellowed for calm and quickly got them all into order.

'Don't panic, don't scatter, just follow me!' Uncle Brax shouted, and ran out of the larder as the last of them were freed, Auntie Gwen and Ianto included. They were both bewildered and disorientated, but quickly assumed commanding roles and ushered out the terrified villagers in pursuit of Brax. 'Leah! Alex! Out with me! Now!' was Brax's last call. Leah took Alex's hand and ran with him seconds before the entire larder collapsed in in a heap of mud, stones and sticks.

Alex's little legs couldn't go too fast so she was half-dragging him through the dirt. Almost immediately a crowd of spiders were on their tail. Leah quickly blasted some more Rastinate behind them as they reached the exit point where Uncle Brax was reaching into the hole, desperate to get them. Leah pushed Alex up to Uncle Brax, who lifted the boy and pulled him up one-handed as she turned back and blasted some more Rastinate in the pursuing spiders' faces. Then Uncle Brax got hold of her, yanking her out of the tunnel as she dispensed her last rastinate smoke bomb.

Collectively she, Uncle Brax, Alex, Auntie Gwen, Uncle Ianto and the last of the villagers got up, and ran. Seconds later, the ground hissed, and then exploded in a shower of mud and grass.

They were all thrown off of their feet, but within seconds Uncle Brax was already screaming for them to get up again. Leah quickly realised that the ground they were standing on was falling beneath their feet as the tunnel system collapsed in on itself. Leah hauled her brother up again, dragging him once more. They kept going, kept running, until finally Uncle Brax called them all to a halt and they stopped, gasping for air. Leah turned back to where the spiders' nest had been, and all that remained was a massive muddy crater filled with dead spiders half in and half-out of the dirt. There was no sign of life.

'Everyone okay!?' Uncle Brax asked quickly. Everyone nodded affirmation, just trying to get their breath back. He then smiled, turning to Leah. 'You did it. I'm so proud of you.'

Finally, all of the fear and tension that had been inside the four-year-old gallifreyan released, converting into pure relief. She giggled, and ran forward to hug him around the waist. So he wasn't her Daddy, but he'd do for now, she decided.

'Leah!' a bellow came from afar. It was Hunfrid, bounding towards them. The ground was shaking.

'Did everyone get out? All the villagers?' Leah asked anxiously as he reached them.

Hunfrid nodded. 'They did. Thank you, sincerely. Your father would be so proud.'

Leah beamed.

'Brax!' Auntie Gwen suddenly shouted in alarm. Both Leah and her uncle looked to her – and immediately registered Alex lying on the ground, wheezing.

Uncle Brax realised immediately, running to the boy. 'Alex!' he called, crashing down on his knees next to him. He didn't respond, just lying there with his eyes closed.

'Alex!' Leah cried, running to her little brother. 'Holl'gero!'

Uncle Brax shook him slightly, but he didn't respond. He checked his pulse next.

'He's beating, it's rapid but it's there…' Uncle Brax muttered, and searched the boy's body. It quickly became apparent what the problem was as Brax carefully turned him over and saw a puncture wound to the back of the boy's leg. Then he realised. 'No. No. No.'

'What?' Leah asked anxiously. 'What happened? Uncle Brax!?'

'He's been bitten,' Uncle Brax grunted, and without another word he scooped up the boy and began to run back to the TARDIS. For a moment Leah could only stand there, utterly paralysed. Her father had said the bite of a creipian spider was highly poisonous to construct six lifeforms and below. Time Lords and Gallifreyans alike were construct seven, but Alex was a weak, sickly boy...

'Alex,' she moaned, seeking out her Auntie's hand. Auntie Gwen obliging took it as Uncle Ianto knelt down to hug her.

'He'll be okay,' Uncle Ianto insisted.

'It's my fault, it's my fault, he came to save me,' Leah whined, sobbing.

'Of course it's not your fault, don't be silly. And Brax knows what to do, he'll be okay,' Auntie Gwen said, but not for the first time, the words of the adults weren't reassuring Leah. She knew far more than they did.

She'd killed her little brother because she'd wanted to have some stupid adventure.

'Why must someone always die?' Hunfrid asked suddenly, quietly, to no one in particular.

No one could reply. In the end, Auntie Gwen simply thanked the giant for his hospitality, and took Leah's hand. Covered in mud, spider blood and tears, the little girl was led back to the TARDIS, utterly distraught.

A/N: Translation

Shikla? - OK?

Holl'gero! - Say something!