Having woken up and basked in Duchess' presence for what had probably been some time but felt like the blink of an eye, Duke attempted to stretch and very quickly stopped as his injured ribs immediately protested. "...So… where do you want to go from here?" She looked away from him and into the distance, thinking. "...I really should stay here, downtown, help the Pack recover from the original Duke's cruelty and Trixie's death, but…" Duke pressed in closer to her, ignoring the shooting pain in his ribs that this caused. "But what? Do you want to leave here?... Together?" Duchess dipped her head towards the ground ashamedly. "I… I can't, they need me…" Duke licked her muzzle reassuringly, satisfaction coursing through him as she lifted her head back to its previous height and smiled at him slightly. "What would you want to do if we did leave?" She paused, placing her head on her front legs and staring into the distance contemplatively. "I had some nice moments with my owners, even if they mostly just trained and groomed me for dog shows before they… put me in that place…" She dipped her head again, nuzzling him and continuing after he nuzzled her comfortingly.

"...I've always dreamed of living in a home like that instead of… that place or the streets… a nice one, with nice people who would care for me, and food that I don't have to struggle to get, and a big yard with all kinds of greenery… but I can't have that, sweet little houses like that are for normal dogs who weren't chewed up and spit out… I need to stay here, it's where I belong…" The dog managed to stand up, ignoring the throbbing of his injuries and pitifully attempting to hold her in an embrace with his small stature. His efforts to lick her ears reassuringly were more successful, allowing her eyes to regain some of their former brightness. "Duchess, if you don't like this place, you don't belong here. You should be in a sweet little house, like you said. You're amazing, you- you deserve everything you want…" She hesitated for a long moment before responding, inadvertently making him nervous that she'd leave again by staring at the alley exit. "...We probably should get you to a vet, and I don't know what they'd do to you… where they'd take you if you went as a stray… I don't want to know… Are you sure you want to do this?"

He settled back against her side, overjoyed that they were planning a future together. "Absolutely-" He trailed off as the rat interrupted him by throwing herself against the bars of her cage, apparently having recovered from their earlier ordeal, and Duchess looked over at her, alarmed. "...I guess she wants to do this too…" Duke contemplated this predicament, trying to live up to his duty of protecting his… girlfriend? from problems like this, especially those he had brought into existence… He couldn't bring the rat back to the others, not when taking her from them in the first place was an affront horrific enough to never have been considered… they'd probably kill him… and leaving her here in this alley could very well cause her to escape or fall into the paws of another like the original Duke, although there was probably no one even close to being as bad as him here or anywhere… plus her essence would be lost into the aether, never again to mingle with and strengthen that of the group, her companions… companion? in life…

He hesitantly looked over at Duchess to find her contemplating this issue as well, her worry indicating that many of these points had occurred to her… although she probably didn't know about the problem of the rat's essence; that was really only spoken of among the Rats… and him, before he had betrayed them… even if it was necessary… Duke looked down at the ground, aware of the magnitude of what he was about to ask. "...Maybe we could… take her with us? I don't think it'll be long until she… dies, and… it's hard to explain… if she died away from any members of the Rats… or former members, I think I'd still count… she… her strength would be lost to them, instead of being reabsorbed into the group." Duchess' evident interest in his description of the group he had belonged to for the vast majority of his life lifted a weight off his shoulders that he hadn't known he was carrying. "You really care about them, don't you? That's so sweet… am I asking too much of you? Do you want to try to stay with them?" He shook his head vigorously, nearly accidentally hitting her.

"No! No, I just don't want that to happen to them… to her… I don't care about it happening to me, I was never really fully one of them, and you… you mean more to me than they ever did…" He put his muzzle under his paw, embarrassed, and relief flooded through him as Duchess licked it. "Oh, Duke- Of course we can take her with us." She stood up and padded slightly towards the alley exit, alarming him until she looked back at him reassuringly. "I'll go explain the situation to the Pack, you just rest here, okay? I'll be with you in a moment." Duke attempted to join her, making it a few pawsteps off of the pillow before his injured body tried to force him into regretting this decision. Duchess strode back towards him, giving him an affectionate lick and nuzzle that would hopefully be enough to tide him over until she got back. "Really, it's okay, I can handle this myself. Besides, they'll… uh…"

She paused, looking away from him briefly. "Probably want to go for as long as they can without having to be around an unfamiliar male after what they went through and just escaped from with the original Duke… especially when you share his name and strength, just in a… much better way with that last thing." He settled back onto the pillow with her assistance, reflecting on what she had just said. "...Is the Pack just his girlfriends?... former girlfriends?" She padded towards the alley exit, looking back at him just as he experienced another instinctual flaring up of panic. "...Mostly, but we all knew that Bruce wasn't just a 'really good friend of his.' …He'll probably be the only one to not take this well, poor guy…" After a long pause, she perked up, bounding towards the alley exit and pausing at it briefly. "See you in a bit!" With that, she was gone… not permanently… definitely.