Ginger
by Ligia Elena
Turlough became suspicious the moment they boarded the ship. His brother's demeanor had changed -- oh, he was still friendly, but he had lost that slightly dimwitted air he had had all day. Turlough had been disappointed to discover his brother seemed a bit thick, but blood was blood, and Turlough would give Malkon chance to change.
But he didn't expect him to change that quickly. The Trion officer said something about engine repairs and slinked away, which was odd in itself -- was he in command, or not? Malkon, meanwhile, cheerfully settled in the pilot's chair, and Turlough eased himself into a passenger seat, eyeing his brother.
After the engine had roared to life and they were well into the atmosphere, Malkon produced a communicator, opened a channel to ... someone, and said without preamble, "I've got him."
Shit.
A woman's voice replied, "Wonderful. I'll see you shortly."
Malkon ended the communication
"You tricked me!" Turlough said.
"Uh-huh," said Malkon, distracted by navigating. "Sorry about that." He didn't sound very sorry.
"You're not my brother, are you?"
"No, sorry. I am a Trion, though!" A look at Turlough's face told Malkon that this was not a mitigating factor, so he added, "Please don't try anything. You are hopelessly outnumbered, not to mention that this ship needs a pilot. That's me."
Stars were appearing. They were leaving that blasted planet behind. That planet where Turlough, like an idiot, had parted ways with the Doctor, leaving the safety of the TARDIS to walk right into this trap.
"If a Trion has captured me, I take it that means my exile hasn't been lifted. It was all a lie -- the government hasn't changed at all, has it?"
"Oh yes. So I'm told. This is all ancient history to me."
"What?"
"Oh come on, you've been traveling through time. Think you're the only one who can? But you've given us quite the chase. You were put on Earth, and you were supposed to stay put. But no! First you set up a deal with the Black Guardian -- how stupid could you be?"
"You try being stuck in that dreadfully boring backwater of the universe. I was desperate!"
"Well, by the time we got wind of it, you were already running all over the galaxy."
"It's not my fault I had no home to go to."
Malkon only rolled his eyes.
"So you set up this whole ruse to trap me?"
"Pretty much, yes."
Turlough turned this over in his mind and then said, "But you ... How long have you been at this? They said you were found as a baby!"
"Yeah, that." Malkon squirmed almost apologetically. "Just a little mass hypnosis. Just a little temporary use of an illegal ... but no harm done, right? Lucky you fell for the bait -- the effect was due to wear off."
"I can just imagine what they'd do when they realized you'd tricked them into worshiping you," Turlough scoffed.
"No, we only planted the idea that they had found me as a baby, so I could be integrated into the community. We didn't really expect they'd run with it the way they did. Weird how the mind works, huh? Hey look! Here we are."
"Here? Where's here?" But as Turlough spoke, he could see in the view screen that they were docking onto a much larger ship in orbit around the planet.
As Malkon turned his attention to that mind-numbingly slow process, Turlough sunk back into his chair and sulked. The Doctor. This was the Doctor's fault, with his notions of throwing oneself into danger in the name of "good." Turlough fell for it, and thought good was what he was doing on Sarn, and now he was paying the price.
Finally, the ship had clunked into place, the bay doors were closing, and Malkon rose. "Let's go," he said. When Turlough looked rebellious, he added, "Oh come now, don't make a fuss about it. I don't want to have to pull a gun on you."
As they shuffled their way off the ship with the crowd of Sarn refugees, Turlough instinctively looked for escape routes, though rationally he knew they were not to be found on this little ship. The bigger one, however, offered bigger possibilities.
Once they had disembarked, Malkon grabbed Turlough's arm and pointed at a woman walking toward them. She halted within five feet and peered at Turlough, but spoke to Malkon: "You're sure this is him?" She didn't wait for a reply. "You've got quite the streak of ..." she chose the word with delicacy bordering on disdain, "... self-preservation in this lifetime, Doctor."
"Come on, be fair," Malkon told the woman. "He won't have any more regenerations to rely on, right?"
Turlough laughed in spite of himself. "'Doctor'? You fools, you've got the wrong man. I only travel with the Doctor -- I'm not him." Then he added with a touch of defensiveness. "And I won't give him up or do anything to put him in harm's way, whatever you think of me."
The woman arched an eyebrow. "How touching."
Turlough put on his best stubborn expression, waiting to resist whatever they threw at him, but he did not expect what happened next. The woman reached in her jacket and produced a fob watch, which she offered to him. "Will you open this for me, please?"
Turlough did not take it. "What will it do?"
"Tell you the time. Please. If it were a bomb or a weapon it would just as likely hurt Malkon standing next to you, yes? But he's not moving away."
Seeing the logic in that -- and with Malkon stepping a little closer to prove the point -- Turlough took it from her cool hand and snapped it open.
One by one, the Sarn refugees' and Trion guards' attention turned to the little knot of three as glowing strands of gold light flowed from the watch in Turlough's hand. He did not notice, overwhelmed as he was by the return of thirteen lifetimes of memories -- including memories of his younger self dealing with a surly, would-be assassin schoolboy ...
"Welcome back, Doctor."
He turned to the smiling Malkon and recognized not his long-lost brother but his most recent companion, before he went into hiding.
Went into hiding to escape from ...
"Romana?" the Doctor said to the woman. It was clicking into place. "Are you here to arrest me?" With even more outrage he said, "Malkon helped the Time Lords track me down?"
"No!" Malkon protested. "Well, a little, but you were out of control, running all over the universe and trying to kill your past self and you had to be stopped before ... er, Romana, please explain it."
"What happened is he went on the run from his own people. Again. But he buried himself rather more deeply than he did the first time around. So I could not find him to tell him that the mood of the resurrected Hig Council was rather more lenient than one would expect it to be toward genocide. Unsuccessful genocide with extenuating circumstances. They're quite glad to have such reduced numbers of Daleks, you know." She added, "I'm not in league with them, thank you so much for your trust. I was simply helping your friend help a friend."
"Oh," the Doctor said, abashed. "So ... What was their recommended sentence?"
"Oddly enough," she said, "in your disguise you have served it."
"Exile on Earth? Again?"
Malkon and Romana both nodded.
"Do you think that means the Time Lords will call it even?"
"You did escape," Romana reminded him.
"So you really are here to take me back and make me face the music?"
"We could do that," Romana said loftily. "Malkon, what do you think?"
"We could. In his favor" -- Malkon swept his arm to indicate the still-gawking refugees -- "he did just save all these people."
The Doctor's eyes followed the gesture across the room and stopped, as Malkon had intended, at the sight of the corners of a blue box standing sturdily behind a pillar across the docking bay.
Romana and Malkon returned his grin, and together, the trio ran for freedom once again.
The End