Author's Note: I don't own anything. Tegan seems to own me. This is a Halloween fic, cos, Halloween.
Far From Heaven
"Even if you were one of your planet's foremost scientists, Tegan, you're still not equipped to understand the TARDIS. It's not your fault," Turlough said comfortingly. His voice sounded kind but the mockery on his angular face hinted that he was humoring the monkey.
"Turlough, hand me the calibrator," the Doctor said, entirely absorbed in the guts of the TARDIS.
"It takes a rocket scientist to hand the Doctor his tools? Oh, never mind. I'm going out for a bit of a walk." Tegan knew she was thin-skinned, and she suspected Turlough knew he was sandpaper.
"Do be careful. It looks rather primitive out there."
"Yeah, I know. I heard 1992 is a bad year for civilization." Tegan stomped out of the TARDIS. She was instantly sorry she had. It was damp and chilly, a normal October evening in London. It didn't look like it had changed much. It wasn't giving her nostalgia for 1983 or anything.
She had a choice. She could go find a pub, or she could go back in and punch Turlough in the nose. He was a bleeder, she could tell just looking at him.
But the Doctor would look at her reproachfully. She hated that. Tegan sighed. The punch wasn't worth it. This was London. Somewhere around here would be a snug pub and she could have a beer, and maybe the beer would be chasing something a little harder down into a nice burning spot in her belly.
Tegan wrapped her arms around herself and lowered her head into the wind like a grumpy bull. She had a feeling that there'd be a pub down that way.
Overhead she heard the faint rumble of a jet making its way towards Heathrow, or maybe Gatwick. She shook her head ruefully. Once she'd tasted real freedom, being an air hostess no longer suited her.
You should have been born with wings.
The wind whispered her name in her ear. Tegan stopped in her tracks and looked around. It was her imagination, and anyway, she wasn't frightened. Sure, Earth was a primitive planet teeming with muggers and rapists, but it was her home turf and Tegan figured she was tough enough to look out for herself here. She had a sense of feeling in place.
It was starting to rain.
Tegan.
Down the block, someone hurried up steps and went into a building. It was a woman, holding a newspaper open over permed hair, and moving with a middle-aged scurry on too-youthful high-heeled shoes. Tegan's heart thumped painfully in her chest and she ran with a clop of heels down the pavement.
She hadn't seen Aunt Vanessa's ghost. It was Aunt Vanessa's flat. No wonder the déjà vu had hit like a freight train.
Someone else was living there now, and she was the ghost, lingering outside despite the chilly rain on her bare arms. Tears dripped hotly down her cheeks.
"You'll catch your death. You should go in." The voice was male, but it was not the Doctor or Turlough who stood at her shoulder. He was tall and hatless, and a long coat flapped around his legs. His hair was dark and spiky with moisture.
"It's not my house," Tegan said, putting a hand to her face to rub the tears from her eyes.
He put a handkerchief in her hand, and then as she dried her eyes, he put his coat around her shoulders. "Can I call you a taxi? It looks like the London weather caught you off guard." Underneath the coat he was wearing a business suit, and even coatless was certainly much more comfortable in the chill than she was in cropped shirt and leather skirt.
She huddled gratefully under the coat and felt her body heat warming it up.
"But you ran up here--? I'm sorry, I don't want to be nosy."
"I used to live there, long ago, with my aunt. She's dead now. I didn't even realise I was in this neighborhood until a minute ago." Tegan essayed a laugh. "I was looking for the pub, if you want to know the truth."
"Always. I was headed that way myself. Let me walk you there. Perhaps you remember the Black Horse?"
"Yes," Tegan said with feeling; the feeling practically drew her towards the pub like a homing signal. She could have sworn she smelt hops on the wind. "The name's Tegan, by the way. Thanks for the coat."
"No trouble at all. I'm James."
"You sound a little Scottish."
"I might have some Scottish blood in me, from way back. And you are undoubtedly Australian."
"Got it in one. Ahhhhhh…" Tegan almost moaned as James held the door of the pub for her and she got a face full of warm air haunted by the aroma of beers past.
--
Two fingers of neat Scotch and a half pint of beer later, Tegan had warmed to James as well as to the world. For one thing, the man had good taste in coats. The light brown overcoat was silk lined with an outer shell of fine wool. "Did you just get off work? You're a bit over-dressed for the pub, James. Not that I'm complaining, you're a life saver."
"Me!" He chuckled, dark brown eyes shining. "Never, it was my luck to come along at that particular moment and give a lady a hand—or rather, a coat. Are you warmer now? There's a bit of color in your cheeks."
"Yes, thank you."
"I didn't have any engagements tonight, so I came down here looking for a quick bite. They do a nice steak and kidney pie here. Or perhaps I could tempt you with richer fare?" James tilted his head to one side and the light shone into his dark eyes and made them seem more deep and mysterious than his youthful face warranted.
He seemed to like her. It felt good, a man showing interest in her. She hadn't had that for a long time. Marriner the Eternal did NOT count; he'd been a Thing in the shape of a man.
"Sounds good. Can I finish my beer? It's been such a long time since I had one."
"Far be it for me to ask someone to rush a drink." He flashed a sharp, white smile, and unvoiced laughter glinted from his eyes.
James claimed he couldn't figure her out. She knew odd things but had no clue about the latest hot pop groups. She didn't know who the Prime Minister was, or the events of the current celebrity scandal. "Freddie Mercury is dead? Hell, he had a great voice. What a pity."
Tegan knew the alcohol had gone to her head when she felt a little sniffly. She didn't even like Queen all that much. James was patting her hand. "I didn't take you for tender-hearted, Tegan."
"It's the drink on an empty stomach… let's go eat."
"Yes, I'm hungry, too."
--
James led her out, murmuring something about his car being back up the block, but when he drew her into the alley instead, Tegan didn't demur. He kissed her. In a generous rush of vitality, she kissed James like he was a lover instead of some stranger she'd met down the pub. The kiss blazed out of her deepest self like a solar prominence. It wasn't love at first sight; it was passion at last gasp. She wanted to feel these things again, to remind herself they existed. Messy human feelings were like dust in the cold, white light of the TARDIS corridors.
James lifted his head, looking a little dizzy. "What an extraordinary woman you are, Tegan Jovanka."
She hadn't told him her last name. His lips were strangely cold. Tegan looked up into his face, his lips still parted from their kiss, his eyes lost in shadow.
"You're a vampire." She could see the glint of his fangs.
"Yes." His smile sharpened into a wider curve that flaunted the elongated canines.
"You can see into my mind."
"Yes. You've met my kind before." His arms tightened around her, only enough to remind her that she was trapped.
"Brilliant. I can't even visit my old neighborhood without running into a creature of the night." Tegan complained. It was a gift, really, to summon up sour commentary on life when she was about to lose it. Or was dying with the last word on her lips really much of a consolation?
--
Tegan stumbled back into the TARDIS, soaked, chilled, and shivering. The Doctor and Turlough were crouching over the exposed guts of the console like two children playing Operation. The Doctor dropped his calibrator or his neutron ram or meson emitter or electric shaver. She didn't give a damn.
"Tegan, are you all right?" He stood up, meaning to intercept her, but she waved him off.
"Back in a minute. I've got some bad news." She hurried past and dived into her room. A few minutes later she came out, wrapped up in her heavy fur coat. "Vampire. Just one, but you know how they are. There's probably a nest of them somewhere about."
"A vampire? How do you know? Tegan, you weren't bitten, were you?" The Doctor stared suspiciously at Tegan's hand where she clutched the coat to her neck.
"Vampires?" Turlough looked incredulous.
"He was a Queen fan too." Tegan giggled. She'd earned her hysteria the hard way.
"Tegan, I insist you let me check you. You're not behaving at all normally. You're white as a sheet and your lips are blue," the Doctor scolded.
"Vampires?" Turlough repeated himself.
The Doctor reached for Tegan's coat lapels. "Yes, Turlough, there are alien haemovores who can spread their condition to other species to create servants… now, Tegan, really! I insist!"
"No, Doctor!" Tegan wrestled the upset Time Lord for the coat and lost.
"Vamp—naked?" Turlough's parrot snuffed it mid-squawk.
"Uh—" The Doctor uh'd.
"Well, you wanted to look, Doctor!" Tegan glared at him and let the coat sag around her body, naked except for her shoes. She'd needed to take off her cold wet clothes, and her news had been too important to wait. "Do you see any vampire bites? Have you looked hard enough?"
Turlough gulped. The Doctor reached out, his mouth held in a taut white line, and tilted her head from side to side. His eyes efficiently scanned the rest of her body. Tegan didn't feel cold at all any more. Pure rage, or something like it, was keeping her warm. He pulled the coat back up her shoulders and wrapped it around her.
"How did you get away?"
"I knew what he was, I told him you'd destroy him if he hurt me, and he knew your name. I threw his coat in his face and ran away." Something like that.
"Coat? No, never mind. Go get dressed, Tegan."
Tegan caught sight of Turlough's nervous smirk and gave him a death glare. He blanked his expression, and she went to put on some clothes.
They spent the rest of the night vampire slaying, much to Turlough's shock. Native of a high advanced scientific society, he loathed the idea of actual vampires even if they did turn out to be alien-bred.
Tegan slept late the next day. It was already getting dark when she quietly slipped out of the TARDIS. She had an appointment to keep.
--
"What do you
expect? It's Hallowe'en, the night the dead walk the earth." He laughed mockingly.
"I know what you are, and I know how to kill you. The Doctor and I killed lots of your kind. Maybe you should be afraid, not me." Tegan thought there was enough truth in her words to give the vampire pause.
His hand found her neck, the cold flesh sucking the heat from hers. He tilted her chin up to expose her throat to him. "Extraordinary. You are far more than a quick meal, Tegan. Don't you want to live forever, young and beautiful just as you are now?"
--
Tegan moved purposefully through the cemetery. She knew exactly where she was going. Her big furry coat was proof against the chilly November wind, and her sturdy shoes crunched over the gravel of the path. A marble tomb with an unnecessarily ornate angel guarding it loomed up in the dim evening light. It wasn't raining, but it was very cloudy. Not even the low rays from the sunset penetrated the gloom.
"Tegan, what are you doing here?"
"Doctor, why did you follow me? Don't you trust me?" She turned on him. "Should I strip down so you can see if you missed a bite somewhere? I thought you got enough of an eyeful last night."
"Yes, I did—I mean, no, I don't—oh, keep your clothes on. Why are you here? Why have you—oh." The Doctor's fierce aspect sagged into sheepishness. Tegan always softened when she could see he knew he'd been in the wrong. It happened so seldom.
"Come along, then."
He followed her further into the cemetery.
Tegan knelt to lay the flowers she'd been carrying on Vanessa Frazer's grave. "She loved London. She was a widow and she didn't have any children of her own, but she enjoyed her life immensely all the same." If you're not having fun, stop doing it. Just drop it and move on. Vanessa had told her that when she'd got hired as a stewardess.
"I'm so sorry, Tegan."
"It was like it was destined, wasn't it? That you should stop on the Barnett Bypass, and he follow you, and then to kill her—like the old story about a man who bought a fast horse and rode all night to another town to avoid Death, only to find Death there waiting for him. He killed her because he could. Because he liked having the power of life and death. She died, and I ended up with you. And I'm not sorry for that."
The Doctor put his arm around her shoulders. "So that's how you knew your way around here so well. I wondered about that last night."
"He wanted to make me a vampire."
--
"Live forever? Like that will happen. I've seen your kind die in droves." Tegan deliberately opened her mind and showed him the images of violence. She sickened herself with all that dwelt in her memory. The destruction of a Great Vampire was the scum on top of a deep well of misery.
He staggered back, and she fled like the practiced escapee she was to the approximate safety of the TARDIS.
--
"I suspected as much." His voice walked a fine line between pleasure at being right and resignation.
Tegan ducked out from under the Doctor's arm and scowled at him. "I want my own life, thank you, not to go sucking the life out of other people through their blood. You should know me that well by now."
"I know, only…" The Doctor's blue gaze seemed to know her only too well. "I thought perhaps you might have been a little lonely?"
Tegan tossed her head sullenly. "It's not like you were going to go to the pub with me."
"It just so happens I could murder a tall glass of ginger beer." He offered her his arm in that courtly manner she couldn't help responding to, and gave her his brightest smile when she took it.
"You could have a Bloody Mary. You've got the celery for it." They walked together out of the cemetery. The peace offering was accepted, but that didn't mean Tegan couldn't give him a hard time in her turn.
"I don't wear it because I like eating it."
"Why do you wear it? I've always meant to ask."
"Medical reasons. You see, I've an allergy…"
The voices of the Doctor and Tegan Jovanka faded on the November breeze. The flowers of All Saint's Day brightened the cemetery despite the lack of sunshine.
The End