"Who are you?"
They had both been so absorbed in their respective tasks that a minute passed before one noticed the other. Turlough, on being seen, had done his best not to impersonate a startled deer, but suspected he may have failed horribly.
"Oh," he said, as casually as he could under the circumstances, leaning affably against the TARDIS console, "my name's Turlough. Is this your box?"
"This is my TARDIS," replied the other man, eyeing Turlough with surprise and suspicion. "I'm the Doctor. What are you doing here?"
"Well, you know, just, took the transmat capsule up to that weird ship out there, and then... your door was open?" he shrugged.
"The door was open," repeated the Doctor with a tight-lipped nod. "Fair enough. Aren't you going to get in trouble for missing class?"
Turlough rolled his eyes. "I would have thought it was fairly obvious that I'm not as young as I look," he scoffed.
"Yes, well, neither am I, I suppose," replied the Doctor.
"I, umm, I see your check-engine light's flashing," Turlough grinned nervously. "Would... you like me to take a look?"
"Vislor," observed the headmaster, "that's rather an unusual first name, isn't it, young man?"
"It's Czech, sir," Turlough bluffed, nervously adjusting his shirt cuffs. Civility, paired with a few well-placed fabrications, he thought, would serve him better than tight-lipped belligerence: after all, the headmaster seemed, at least for the time being, to be affable enough, and it would not be in his best interest to antagonize him.
"But surely – "
"My mother was Czech," he replied, anticipating the question.
"Ah, of course," nodded the headmaster. Any past-tense mention of parents tended mercifully to mean a quick change of subject. It was something no one seemed willing to confront, which suited Turlough well enough. "I see your solicitor's put your registrations in order, so I'll have Mr. Parkhurst show you to the dormitory and help you get settled in. You can start classes tomorrow morning, all right?"
The headmaster stood then; Turlough followed suit, accepting a firm handshake.
"Thank you, sir," said Turlough.
"I think you'll like it here at Brendon, young man," beamed the headmaster, handing Turlough a stack of schedules and information.
"Oh yes," agreed Turlough, inwardly concerned that his attempted smile had only reached as far as a grimace.
The TARDIS console room was bright and sterile, all white and lights and those funny polka dots on the walls – much too much illumination for such a late hour. At this point in his flagging wakefulness, Turlough would likely not have minded another power failure.
Or a dimmer switch, whatever was easier.
He found himself engrossed in sketching the hat stand, of all things: meticulously crosshatching all the shapes and shadows of that corner of the room nearly distracted him from his troubled thoughts. His sketch looked darker than the corner itself, but that was to be expected. Tegan had long since shuffled off to bed, exhausted and confused; the Doctor, as far as he knew, had gone to the electrical room to tinker for a while, or perhaps if he had any sense himself, had gone to bed as well. Thus, Turlough found himself alone, with only the ceaseless hum of the TARDIS engines to keep him company.
And the hat stand, he supposed. The hat stand felt so out of place in the room, yet oddly at home as well, just as Turlough himself felt with Tegan and the Doctor. He had that in common with the hat stand; perhaps they were kindred spirits in that way, he thought. He was just tired enough, it turned out, that it nearly made sense to compare himself to a piece of furniture.
"Tea?" asked the Doctor, setting a cup down beside him. Turlough had been too preoccupied with his work to notice that the Doctor had entered the room until he spoke.
"Ooh, rather," agreed Turlough with a sigh of relief, blowing gently on the surface of the hot liquid, watching the steam roll off in into the air.
"Shouldn't you be in bed by now?" queried the Doctor.
"Can't sleep," sighed Turlough.
It should have come as a greater surprise to him that the Doctor had not evicted him as soon as his betrayal had been revealed; it seemed, however, that the Doctor was prone to strange bouts of compassion. Turlough was unsure if he could have lived with himself had he completed the act he had been contracted to perform.
"You know you don't have to wear that uniform anymore if you're not going back to the school," observed the Doctor, surveying Turlough's suit.
"I know," said Turlough, "but I like it, actually."
"It does suit you," replied the Doctor, awkwardly ruffling his hair. Turlough smiled inwardly.
He was rather loath to admit that he actually preferred his Earth wardrobe to the sorts of bland grey Trion work clothes he had always considered to be profoundly unflattering at best. With a few strategic adjustments, that three-piece school suit of his had turned out to be rather smart. Possibly even a bit sexy, he thought.
The P.E. uniforms were perhaps a bit too sexy for an institution populated almost entirely by underage boys (and, until recently, one justifiably disgruntled twentysomething), though Turlough now slightly regretted not having exploited those snug little blue shorts to his benefit while he had the chance. He might have done, he thought, had there been anyone at Brendon worth seducing. There had, of course, been that one time, but that had not been planned, and he could not say now whether shorts would have made the difference.
There were, on the other hand, numerous times when humans got dressing themselves horribly, horribly wrong. Tegan, he had come to learn, was invariably a good object lesson in what not to wear. It was rather transparent to anyone with even the remotest grasp on social cues that Tegan did not like him. She had seemed to take issue with his moving into that Adric chap's old room – it was a serviceable enough room, though he would not have minded sleeping elsewhere. It seemed silly to begrudge him that, he thought.
Turlough had quickly become adept at faking a case of the sniffles in order to exempt himself from the more disagreeable sporting events at the school. It was there, beneath the shade of the trees that stood just beyond the pitch, that he made the acquaintance of Hippo, who appeared to be exempt from absolutely anything that required the slightest physical exertion.
"Are you going to eat that entire thing?" he asked with a disapproving sneer, watching Hippo shovel in another fistful from his family-size packet of jelly tots.
"That was the plan," muffled Hippo between chews. "My doctor's got me on a horrible new health regime. I'm starving! Fancy a few?"
Turlough shrugged. "Why not?" he replied, accepting a small handful of colourful sweets. Turlough's favourites were the yellow ones. They were meant to be fruit-flavoured, he was fairly sure, but he had not found any fruits in nature that tasted anything like them.
Hippo's father was the head of British Wotsits - Turlough could not remember what; some dull industry or other, he imagined. He also had a girlfriend he saw at weekends, or so he said. Apart from Hippo, Turlough was as civil as needs required, but more or less kept to himself. He was not keen on being The Ginger One in some adolescent band of outsiders; he was well-liked enough besides, except perhaps by some of the faculty, and that was to be expected. He was flogged, once, for ghostwriting a history assignment for Huw Cartwright in exchange for a Talking Heads cassette which, it turned out, he was not especially keen on after all.
"Nice day for not playing rugby though, eh Turlough?" said Hippo, tipping the last of the sickly powdered sugar that had settled to the bottom of the packet into his mouth.
"It's fine," sighed Turlough. "Are you trying to kill yourself, Hippo? You know there are easier ways of doing it."
"Oh give over," replied Hippo, crunching on his mouthful of fructose.
"Suit yourself," shrugged Turlough.
