His head hurt. Not only his head, he discovered when he tried to move it, but his neck, shoulders, back…pretty much his entire body. He allowed the tiniest of groans to escape his lips and opened his eyes.
Tegan was kneeling by his side, peering down at him anxiously. "Doctor? Are you all right? You just sort of keeled over. What happened?"
Just sort of keeled over…that didn't sound right. Hadn't he been attacked by someone? By himself, some future version of himself? Hadn't Tegan also been attacked? Or perhaps…the throbbing in his head eased, but his thoughts remained muddled, unfocused. What had he been thinking? Something about an attack… "My head is definitely not in ideal working order," he announced as he allowed Tegan to help him to a sitting position. "Not in the least. Now. What just happened?"
Tegan was aching to tell him; her throat actually hurt, she strained so mightily to tell him. But the words that came out were the ones the Valeyard had put into her mind. "Like I said, you just sort of keeled over. You were mumbling something just before you came to, something about an attack, but there's been no one here but us. I even checked the proximity alerts and everything seems to be working OK…" She frowned. "As if I could tell," she muttered.
She was amazed at how much like herself she sounded; disconsolate at her inability to really understand the Doctor's machinery, upset and trying to cover it up and knowing she was making a poor job of it. Exactly how she would have sounded had the situation been under her own control.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was facing his own internal struggle. Hadn't he woken up, hadn't Tegan been gone, taken by…by whom? The harder he tried to grasp the memory, the faster it slipped, smoke-like, through his fingers. Something was definitely affecting his thinking processes, something unknown, and he didn't like it. Not one bit. "Did you vanish?" he asked, knowing at once that it was the wrong question.
Tegan's eyebrow rose. "Vanish? No. Not that I remember," she added.
"I woke up…that is, I thought I woke up, and you were gone. You and my future self," he added as memory sharpened into certainty.
"Doctor," she said slowly, carefully, "there's been no one here but the two of us. And you're the one who passed out. In the middle of a sentence."
Lies, lies, all of it lies, all of it flowing smoothly from her lips. All of it designed to cause him to doubt himself, his own vague memories.
All of it designed for the next lie to be more easily believed. "You were sort of mumbling about a bioneural tele-something or other," she added, her voice implying a desire to be helpful. "I think you said membrane, too."
"A bioneural tele…of course! That's it!" He jumped to his feet, face shining with excitement. "It's brilliant!" He started to rush off, only to be stopped by Tegan's hand tugging at his sleeve.
"Where are you going?" she demanded, although she already knew. And the part of the Valeyard that was in her mind exuded smug certainty as well. She ignored that pseudo-emotion as best she could, keeping her eyes focused on the Doctor. Begging him with her own mind not to do what she thought—what she knew—he was about to do.
"I have to go to my TARDIS," the Doctor said, just as she'd expected. "There's a certain scientist I have to visit, some research that one of my future selves sent me that could help you."
"One of your future selves? What, sent you a telepathic message or something? I thought you had to be in physical contact for that sort of thing. And why didn't he just come here and bring the solution himself?" Tegan asked. All questions she would have asked if the situation weren't such a farce, even if the Valeyard wasn't whispering them into her mind.
"Because not all of my selves are willing to bend the laws of Time the way others are, apparently," was his impatient response. "This one decided it would be better to just pop the knowledge into my head rather than risk a face-to-face."
"And you're sure it was one of your future selves?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yes, the feel of my own mind is unmistakable," he replied firmly, and Tegan's last hope was dashed. She should have known the Valeyard wouldn't allow her to ask the question if he was worried about the answer. "Although he could have managed a smoother transfer," he muttered, rubbing the top of his head and wincing. "I hate it when it's rushed like that. Still," he added, turning and offering her a reassuring smile, "he got me the information I needed, and that's what counts. I'm off to find you a bioneural telesthetic inhibiting membrane so you can go home again."
"Well, then, you'd best be off." Tegan felt her lips stretch in an eager smile. "If you really think this will work…"
"Oh, it'll work," he said with another reassuring smile as she released her grip on his sleeve. "I can practically guarantee it."
Two Days Later
She'd had two days alone, two days spent in bitter internal battle. Two days trying to find ways to free herself from the Valeyard's influence long enough to do what she knew, deep in her heart, was the only thing she could do to stop his plans.
She tried to drown herself, but he forced her out of the water. She tried to climb to the roof of her three-story home in order to throw herself onto the hard concrete surrounding the pool, but he wouldn't let her do more than gaze longingly ground-ward from a second-story window. She couldn't carry the toaster into the spa. She couldn't ride a horse fast and hard enough to throw her.
In short, she couldn't kill herself. But she could rage and scream and cry and smash things all she wanted. The housecleaning 'bots cleaned up after her without comment, as they always cleaned up, as if smashed crockery and shredded oil paintings were part of their normal duties. She could hurt herself in small ways, fingernails digging into skin hard enough to cause bleeding, hair torn out, head bruised and battered from being smashed into walls, but never enough to cause lasting damage. Never too much for the medical 'bots to take care of, never severe enough to cause alarms to go off that would bring one version or the other of the Doctor to appear and find out what was wrong.
Right now, two days after the Doctor's seventh self had left her to "discover" the means of securing her release from the Mara's grip on her mind, she was sitting on the sofa, huddled into the corner, staring at the wall. At nothing. All the ruined pictures had been replaced, the china carefully recycled and mended, the small knickknacks returned to their places on the dust-free shelves, the shredded clothing likewise mended or exact duplicates replicated.
The doorbell chimed, and she felt the Valeyard's interior presence stir alertly. Her face went from brooding to welcoming without any help from her, and she watched listlessly as her body sprang from the sofa and hurried to the front door, as her hand turned the knob and flung it open to greet the Doctor.
As expected, as anticipated and dreaded, it was his seventh self returned, triumphantly reaching for her, swinging her around and planting a noisy kiss on her cheek. "Tegan, come with me to the TARDIS," he announced, eyes shining, as he carefully settled her back onto her own feet. "Time to return you to your life."
She hung back, not needing to feign her discomfort, her wariness, her attempts to act as if fighting hope. "Are you sure? Really, really sure?" she asked.
He nodded firmly. "Absolutely. I've sent Ace off for a visit back home for the nonce. But I'm absolutely certain this will work. Spent weeks checking it out," he added reassuringly. "Almost a month. How long since I left?"
"Only two days," she replied, lips twitching into a semblance of a smile. "But it's been long enough. Show me what you've got." And she held out her hand, and he took it, and led her into his TARDIS.
From there, it was almost exactly a repeat of what had happened to her with the Valeyard, at least as far as the equipment set-up, the tenuous form of the membrane stretched on its metal frame, the warning lights, the need for nudity and no make-up or nail varnish, the stepping through the membrane as it fused itself with her.
A membrane, the Valeyard's voice gloatingly told her, that would do absolutely nothing, since she was already protected by a superior version of the same technology. But one that the Doctor would believe worked exactly as it was supposed to.
They left the TARDIS, which was parked right out in the middle of the front lawn to the obvious annoyance of the grounds keeping robots, and returned to the living room. "So, what's the next step?" she asked as she returned to her original position on the sofa.
"A small test," the Doctor replied, still glowing with triumph. "Perhaps a visit from Ace, hmm? She'd like to meet you."
"The feeling's mutual," Tegan replied promptly. "But not just yet, if you don't mind. I'd like a little time to get used to the idea." She held up her arm, seeming to marvel at the look of it. Exactly as it had looked before, at least to the naked eye. "This still seems like magic, Doc."
"'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'," he replied, with the air of repeating a favorite quote. One Tegan didn't recognize, but certainly one that fit the current situation. "How long do you think you'll need?" Obviously he was impatient to get on with things, but it wasn't the Valeyard's intent to allow him to leave without initiating his own plans for the Doctor, and thus it was up to Tegan to drag things out.
"I dunno, give me time to think about it, will you?" she finally asked, half-laughing as she did so and shaking her head. "My head's still spinning."
"Very well," he grumbled, settling himself onto the nearby chair. "Game of chess, then?"
"Oh no, nothing so cerebral as that," she replied as inspiration struck. Inspiration on her own part, or prompted by the Valeyard? She couldn't tell; she only knew that his voice had been whispering for her to find a way to initiate the bodily contact needed for his plan to work. Her eyes had been roaming the room and settled on the corner of the swimming pool she could see from the French doors that opened onto the patio. "Let's go for a swim." At his skeptical look, she summoned up a pleading smile. "Come on, it'll be fun. One last swim together."
"One first swim together as well," he pointed out, but she knew she'd won when he didn't immediately say "no". Her smiled widened, and he sighed and capitulated. As she'd known he would. As she'd hoped, deep inside where she was screaming in denial, he wouldn't. "Fine, very well. One swim. I'll just go fetch a bathing costume from the TARDIS."
"And none of those old-fashioned, covered-up-to-the-chin numbers, either," she called after him. "A proper pair of bathing trunks. Remember, you filtered the artificial sunlight so we can't get burnt, just a lovely coat of tan and no chance of cancer."
He sighed again and waved a hand over his shoulder, and she knew that she'd won that point as well.
As soon as he was out of sight, she pressed a shaking hand to her face and gulped back a sob. It was going to work, exactly as the Valeyard wanted it to, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. With dragging feet, she headed upstairs for the dressing room and the tiniest bikini she could find. She'd never convince this one to sleep with her, nor did the Valeyard even want to try; if she did, he'd become suspicious and her chance would be gone. Gods, how she wished she could ask him, but the words wouldn't even completely form in her mind, let alone escape her lips.
She damned her invisible passenger again, and felt a sharp twinge of pain that forced a cry from her lips. \\Stop fighting me,\\ his voice whispered in her mind, and she pressed both hands to her head, partly from the pain still lancing through her mind, partly from despair. "All right, you win," she whispered, and headed directly for the dressing room as the pain eased, but never completely vanished. A warning, and a reminder, that she was no longer her own person, but belonged to the Doctor's greatest enemy: his own future self.
oOo
"Very fetching," the Doctor said as Tegan appeared poolside. And it was, a lovely purple number with tiny white horizontal strips and somewhat flimsy looking strings holding each piece of the bikini together. It didn't cover very much of her, but Tegan had always been fairly easy about skin, especially now, when it was just the two of them.
She flashed him a grin and nodded at his own apparel. "Glad to see you actually listened to me for once."
He glanced down at himself, somewhat self-consciously. He was a bit pale, the parts of him that were showing, torso and arms and legs from the knees down. The trunks he'd found covered him almost to the knees, a style that was just coming into fashion during Tegan's home time period—jams, he thought they were called. Sure, they were an eye-popping shade of green, but who was going to see them besides Tegan? No one but some robots that would soon be decommissioned and wouldn't have the ability to care even if they were left running for a thousand more years.
Tegan tugged at his hand. "Come on, let's swim," she urged, then released him and dove neatly into the deep end of the Olympic-sized pool. He executed a fairly clean swan dive and joined her for an hour of frolicking in the cool, blue water.
oOo
This was it. It was time. Tegan took a steadying breath, then took the Doctor into an embrace. Initial contact, that's all this was, but the Valeyard's membrane would begin to perform its true function and Tegan could do nothing to stop it. Could do nothing to stop herself from holding the Doctor tightly to her, from speaking the words that popped into her mind: "Doctor, thank you, so much. For everything." I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, her mind chanted in apology, an apology no one but she would ever hear.
He returned the embrace, then gently disentangled himself from her desperate grip. She let him go, allowing him to take her by the hand and lead her to the steps at the shallow end of the pool. From there they moved to the oversized lounge chair and the towels awaiting them. "Swim time's over," the Doctor said firmly, and Tegan simply nodded and accepted the towel he handed her.
When they'd dried themselves off, she dropped down onto the lounge and held out her arms to him. "Hold me before you go?" she asked, and he simply nodded and joined her, lying next to her, arms wrapped around her, her head nestled on his shoulder. Leg to leg, side to side. As much bodily contact as she could manage without implying a desire for sexual intercourse.
Enough contact for the bioneural telesthetic inhibiting membrane that was now an integral part of her to perform the second task it had been created to do. She hoped against hope that it wouldn't work, that the Doctor would prove invulnerable, that the membrane would somehow give itself away, but after fifteen minutes she heard a quiet "ping" inside her mind; she listened in disbelief as she heard an interior computer voice state: "False memories implanted. Phase I for Subject: Doctor Seven complete. Awaiting implementation of Phase I for additional Doctors."
Inside her mind, trapped and not nearly as alone as she longed to be, Tegan wept.
oOo
The Doctor was gone. The Doctor was coming back, and Tegan would know, once and for all, if the Valeyard had actually done as he promised and blocked other minds from her own.
Right now, she'd give anything for that promise never to have been made, for her never to have met the Doctor's evil alter-ego, future potential self, whatever the bastard wanted to call himself. All she wanted was for things to be back the way they were even a week earlier, with her sensitive to any mind but that of the Doctor and subject to blinding headaches when anyone else came with light-years of her prison planet, if only it meant the Valeyard had never gained his insidious hold on her.
But no, there was the familiar sound of the TARDS materializing, right in front of her on the front lawn, and there was the door opening, and no headache, not so much as a hint as first the Doctor's seventh self and then a young brunette in bicycle shorts and black t-shirt emerged.
This was it. Time to put on her act. Big smile, best foot forward.
She waited until they approached her, offering up that big smile as the Doctor cocked his head inquisitively. "Not a bit of pain so far," she pronounced, then turned her smile on his companion. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Ace," she said, and reached out to clasp the younger woman's hand.
As soon as contact was made, there was the tiniest of electric jolts, as if one of them had built up a static charge…and Tegan knew which one of them it had to be. That Ace felt it too was immediately obvious, and Tegan felt a surge of hope at the other girl's startled expression. "Sorry, guess there's some static electricity in the air," Tegan heard herself apologize, and knew with a sinking heart that the Valeyard had anticipated this exact occurrence.
"No worries," Ace said with a smile. She looked up at the front of the house as she released her grip on Tegan's hand. "Nice place. Looks even better in real life than on the scanner screen."
"Would you like a tour?" Tegan asked, knowing how likely it was that a lively young teenager would want to be shown around some boring old house, no matter how exotic its location.
Ace nodded politely if unenthusiastically, and Tegan threw open the front door and marched them all directly toward the French doors that opened up onto the patio. "Here's the part I think you'll like the best," she said with a smile.
Ace's eyes lit up as she looked saw the pool. "A swimming pool? Super, can I try it? The TARDIS pool isn't nearly as large, can't get any proper laps in," she added with a critical sideways look at the Doctor. Who studiously ignored her.
"Go right ahead," he answered with a wave of his hand. "Tegan has plenty of bathing costumes, and if she doesn't have one that fits you, the TARDIS wardrobe will. We've time for a swim before getting on our way."
While Ace changed, Tegan brooded over the electric charge that had snapped between them…and the computer voice that had echoed through her mind: "Initial contact with Subject: Ace complete. False memories transferred." The Valeyard had said nothing to her about affecting the Doctor's companions as well, and it frightened her; what else about his elaborate plan to bring himself into existence didn't she know?
A lot, she answered herself grimly. A whole lot.
If it wasn't for the Valeyard's remote-control hold on her external reactions, she would have screamed in frustration as she joined her guests poolside.
oOo
Ace and Seven were gone, and Tegan knew it was only hours before the fifth Doctor would make an appearance. Not enough time, not nearly enough time for her to try and find some way to warn him, to give him some kind of a hint that things weren't as peachy as they seemed.
She'd tried to write a message, to leave a recording, only to be betrayed by her own body; any notes she committed to paper, her fingers promptly tore up; any messages she tried to record were foiled by a sudden spasm of her throat, closing the words away inside her mind. The third time she tried and failed to make a recording just saying the Valeyard's name, she found herself screaming in rage and frustration as she hurled her chair into the monitor.
The robots quickly and efficiently cleaned up the mess no matter how much she wanted to beg them not to. So even that proof of her disaffection was gone within minutes.
Frustrated anger was beginning to wear on her, although none of it showed outwardly, at least not yet. She wasn't sleeping well, and lately her stomach was one churning mass of nerves. Under other circumstances she'd wonder if she was pregnant, but a simple medical scan told her that no, of course she wasn't. And thank God for that, since the last time had been when the Valeyard forced himself on her.
She was just fretting herself into illness.
She felt a flutter of hope; if she continued on as she was, eventually she'd start to look less than healthy, and then it was only a matter of time before the Doctor noticed. And what excuse would the Valeyard force her to offer, when she should be happier than she'd been in—God, how long had it been since her illness and isolation? What else could the Doctor blame it on besides her bioneural prison? Then he'd be forced to find a way to remove it…but no. She knew full well it wouldn't work that way. The bloody thing was a part of her, inseparable, seeped deep within skin and bones, nerves and muscles, permeating every organ, every follicle, every cell.
Still, it was a hope. Her health was beginning to be affected by her mental state. The Doctor would notice. She perched nervously on the edge of the sofa and fixed her gaze on the front door.
Soon, Five would walk back into her life, the Doctor she'd spent the most time with, the one who knew her best.
If anyone could tell something was wrong with her, it would be him.
A/N: Here it is, my long-awaited (well, by one or two people, I hope) sequel to "Solitary." This story has to be rated "M", there's just no way around it. If you've only read the "T" version here, you might want to check out the "M" version published on A Teaspoon and and Open Mind.
Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta and co-author, Moonmama, who not only helped with fleshing out various chapters, but also contributed to the Whovian technobabble upon demand and with a great deal of graciousness. Any goof-ups are strictly mine.